Many students remember the events that the 2016-2017 Student Council held this fall term, such as the school-wide Lip-Dub challenge, but fewer will recall the accomplishments the council has achieved behind the scenes. Below is a rundown of the Council’s efforts over the past term.
More Inclusive Student Representation
In order to be more inclusive to all students, the Council has revised its Constitution to incorporate students of all genders as well as day students. The changes made to Constitution will be finalized once Dean of Students Mr. James Stanley gives his approval.
Student Body Vice President Namsai Sethpornpong ’17 said, “I think that the changes that we suggested and voted upon are exactly what we need. The point of having a student council is for student representation, and through making these changes, I think we are carrying out the mission of better representing students, and that includes constituents who do not conform to the gender binary and/or whose issues are not represented enough.”
The precursory Constitution stated that in all forms except for the rising sixth form, “If the president and first representative do not represent both genders, the next highest vote-recipient of the opposite gender will become the second representative,” while the new Constitution states that if the top two vote recipients are of the same gender, the third member must be of “any other gender.” Additionally, the circling process has been changed so that after each student selects the names of any eight students who they feel would best represent the form, the top four male and the top four female vote-recipients, as well as the next highest vote-recipient, will be sent a petition. Previously, the top eight students, regardless of gender, received a petition.
Student Body President Cecilia Zhou ’17 explained the driving forces behind pursuing this change. “What initially sparked the scrutiny of the Constitution was a couple of members expressing interest in updating it. And as we got more into it, we realized that there were several inconsistencies between what was written and what we do in practice. So the motive was really twofold — we wanted to reflect the truth of what we actually do and believe, but also change it so it would be more forward-looking.”
She continued, “Very recently, the school officially changed its wording surrounding gender for people who don’t identify as cis-boys or cis-girls. We wanted to make sure that our procedures were reflective of the school’s inclusive values.
Furthermore, the Council has voted to broaden day student representation. Last Monday, in a vote of 10 – 1, the Council agreed to increase the number of day student representatives to two — a rising fourth former representing underclassmen and either a rising fifth or sixth former representing upperclassmen — as opposed to the current system of having only one sixth former on the Council to represent the entire day student population. The two day student representatives will be responsible for meeting with the Director of Day Students once a week and reporting the contents of each meeting to the Council at large. The Council voted on: (i) having three day student representatives, one from each rising fourth, fifth, and sixth forms; (ii) having two day student representatives, a rising forth former representing underclassmen and either a rising fifth or sixth former representing upperclassmen; and (iii) maintaining the current system with one day student representative.
Day Student Representative Jack Hodgson ’17 suggested the idea of increasing the number of day student representatives on the Council. He said, “My predecessors have told me that as the only day student rep, they had great difficulty in reaching out to day students in every form, especially freshmen.”
Zhou added, “Jack also mentioned that oftentimes, when a day student rep voices concerns or suggests initiatives to improve day students’ quality of life, they go straight from him to the Director of Day Students, which he noted that doesn’t feel quite as formal as a Student Council proposal does. And so the idea is that if we have a required base of day students on the Council, and turn day student problems into student council problems, it would help legitimize them and their issues because, historically, student council initiatives have mostly been border-centric ones.”
Fourth Form Representative Arjun Katechia ’19 voiced his support for increasing day student representatives. “As a day student, I believe that more representation would be very helpful,” Katechia said. “As a minority group on campus, our issues our not brought up as frequently as boarders’ issues.”
Another fourth form representative, Tommy Wachtell ’19, added, “The supposed drawback of having additional day student representatives was that this would potentially lead to overrepresentation of day students on the Council. I don’t think this is a significant issue, since it’s much better to have overrepresentation than underrepresentation.”
The Future of the Daily Grind
The 2016-2017 Council has made a record-breaking profit from the Daily Grind (DG), despite competition from the Lanphier café; the DG has made somewhere between $1300-$1700 per year since the 2012-2013 school year, but the 2016-2017 Council’s DG has already exceeded that maximum and still has another term to go. Sethpornpong accounted this success to the expansion of DG to major school-wide events, such as Deerfield Day, during which the DG sold almost 400 donuts and earned around $600 donuts. “We’ve only had four Community Lunches this past fall term, while in the past, we used to have DG almost every week due to the more frequent Community Lunches. Most of our profits came from people who didn’t have lunch blocks on those days. But this year, due to a lot of new variables, we had to make DG more event-centric — for example, extending the DG to Deerfield Day.” She continued, “We found out that it was a huge success. I think another reason for its success was because we sold donuts from Neil’s Donuts, not the ones catered by SAGE.”
The shift of DG from catering to Friday conference block to major school events may be permanent, as there will be no Community Lunch next year, and the new Tuck Shop will open in the St. John’s Hall. Sethpornpong observed, “I’m considering maybe we’ll just do away with the Humanities Rotunda in the future and focus on operating it in conjunction with major events and capitalizing on the crowds who attend those events.”
A Joint Event with Wallingford Townies
As Zhou announced during the school meeting last Wednesday, the Council is currently discussing organizing an event that can foster friendships between Choate and Wallingford students. This idea was brought up by Headmaster Dr. Alex Curtis, who, after meeting with the Mayor and Deputy Police Chief of Wallingford, expressed interest in hosting an event where clubs and teams could open up their facilities and resources to students in town.
Zhou explained the importance of this undertaking, saying, “I think that one of the problems with the Wallingford-Choate relationship is that there’s a lot of animosity and tension, part of it rising from various misunderstandings from both sides. But I think that interacting with each other one-on-one would break down generalizations, because as much as many people in Wallingford see us as this homogenous group of wealth and privilege, we also see them as a homogenous group of people that are ‘out to get us.’ I think that having people connect over a shared experience is bound to have them become more understanding of each other.”
With less than a term left to their tenures, the 2016-2017 Student Council is aiming to deliver on their promises to the fullest extent and finalize their work as they prepare to hand over the baton to the next council.
