Editor’s note: This article was initially published in The Daily Gazette, Swarthmore’s online, daily newspaper founded in Fall 1996. As of Fall 2018, the DG has merged with The Phoenix. See the about page to read more about the DG.
Even this grizzled reporter was intrigued to hear about some of the new ideas coming from Student Council this week.
First, big parking news–due to an administrative oversight on the part of Public Safety’s Terri Narkin, 23 parking spots were not assigned to students over the summer. This was discovered on Thursday, and the spots were immediately offered to students on the waitlist. Now every senior who applied for a parking spot before the deadline has one.
Parking Committee is currently composed of two students, but it’s a big job that should be spread over more people in order to avoid situations like this one. Council plans to recreate Parking Committee with faculty as well as student representation.
Also important to know–because of the new school calendar system, in which Council played an instrumental role, Student Council is going to stop listing events on the Reserved Students Digest as of October 1st. Since 70% of RSD postings list student events, according to ITS employee Kelly Mueller, this should make it much easier to read.
Next, Student Council hopes to keep McCabe open past 1 AM on weeknights. Alyssa Work ’08 reported that the library was “receptive to the idea of having it open later at night and also a bit earlier for people with 8:30 classes,” and that keeping McCabe open an hour later on weeknights might cost only $3,000 more per semester.
Council plans to survey students to see whether this would be a popular change–you can scroll down to take the DG’s informal poll. Would you use later hours at McCabe if they were available?
Student Council is interested in sponsoring more events that focus on wellness and dealing with stress, and “the Deans are on board.” They also touched on the idea of having conversations about the role of Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS) and Worth Health Center. Right now, there’s no easy way to give feedback about Worth until after you’ve graduated–Council feels that students should have an easy way to give feedback more immediately.
The Board of Managers meeting is coming up on September 28-29th. The traditional student-Board lunch will have the theme “The Greening of Swarthmore” and students from Earthlust, Good Food, and other green organizations will be invited to attend.
Council also has meetings later this week with SCCS (the Cygnet hasn’t been updated), Linda McDougal of Sharples (soft-serve ice cream), and Stu Hain of Facilities (a walkway between Mertz and Sharples?). Change is clearly in the air.
We received this information from Student Council, and Terri Narkin wrote to correct us: the 23 spots, located near Mary Lyons and Woolman, are always filled up later in the process. Since the process of assigning parking permits started later this year than usual, these spots were not assigned until now.
The Gazette apologizes for the mistake.
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