Extra-Curricular Activities Committee Meeting
11:00a.m., Thursday, April 20, 2006
Herrick Room, DeWitt Center
Minutes
Members Present:
Jason Gillmore (Chair), Betsy Gibbs, Ellen Awad, Katie Munz, Brad Matson
Members Absent:
Tim Nelson, with notice
Huw Lewis, with notice
Meeting Opening:
> The meeting began at 11:00am.
> Opening remarks and prayer by Jason Gillmore.
> Motion to drop 6a from agenda - it was recommended that the survey results from Student Congress be discussed at the first ECAC meeting in the fall. The agenda was approved as amended by voice vote of all members present.
Old Business:
> Recapping of the year for the ECAC: NSBE approved; waterskiing still addressing some safety concerns - Katy Eagen will meet with Dean Frost, then CLB; Triathlon Club - Ellen Awad and Dean Frost met with the group and they were given approval; African Student Association/Hope for Africa - tabled to next year due to lack of further response from groups after March ECAC meeting; Girl Scouts will be directed to Volunteer Services, as Volunteer Services reports that they work with a number of student interested in working with Girl Scouts. Ellen Awad will meet with Laura Whitbeck to direct to Volunteer Services which should meet the needs expressed by Laura Whitbeck (reserving space on campus, etc). No other action needed/taken at this time for interested groups.
> Collected thoughts from ECAC members for Dean Frost's questions from beginning of year were reviewed. Spent time going through the distributed "General Assessment and Discussion" to review/revise further. Jason Gillmore will revise based on collective changes and pass along to Dean Frost and CLB. (Revised document attached). Revisions were suggested and approved by all members present.
> ECAC began to discuss the 7 specific questions posed by Dean Frost:
o Yes, organizations cover a broad array of interests, ranging from cultural, to academic, to social, to service, to athletic, etc. There are some areas that more represented than others. ECAC likes the variety of orgs offered.
o Does SAC provide appropriate programming - yes and no, mostly successful for the broad middle, maybe too repetitive, but well attended; more effort to catch the margins of student interests. Changes are on the horizon for SAC because of changes in direction and assessment of past programming.
o Greeks - helps with diversity on campus, really unique opportunity for many students, recruiting draw, service work, really get behind service activities; but there are also negative aspects to Greek Life: may be declining interest/numbers; fraternities decline more than sororities, over long term both have declined, but some of this is due to the increase in other organizations available on campus; ongoing concern is hazing, academic concerns related to time commitment of Rush/New Member Education; more and more Greeks are standing up to denounce negative behaviors in the past; drinking and risk management concerns; but side-by-side concerns with athletic groups; concern is that athletic teams are not kept to the same standard of risk management accountability. A benefit of the Greek system is that there is the risk management policies in place (57 in fact). Alumni of Greek organizations are more involved in ongoing college life and are generous givers.
o It is believed that the student who is more involved in campus life does well academically. Some traditions, though, are believed to be more detrimental to academic success in their current forms. ECAC does not believe that certain activities/events need to be ended, but it could be beneficial to reevaluate/revise how some events are done. It is time to re-look at how things are done with certain events/traditions so that academics, health and well-being are at the forefront.
o ECAC agreed to discuss/answer questions 5-7 over email.
o Jason will collect and distribute to Dean Frost/CLB.
Adjournment:
> Jason Gillmore genuinely thanked the committee for the various roles each member carried out and for the committee's dedicated efforts over a long and busy year.
> The committee collectively agreed to adjourn the meeting at 11:53pm
Minutes submitted by Betsy Gibbs, ECAC Secretary, 4/24/06
Academic year 2005-2006 Extra Curricular Activities Committee
Discussion & General Assessment of Hope College's Extracurricular Climate & Opportunities
In October 2005, Dean of Students Richard Frost, on behalf of both his office and Campus Life Board (CLB) asked the Extra Curricular Activities Committee (ECAC) to "assess the overall big picture of extracurricular activities at Hope College." This ongoing discussion throughout the year has been limited by the presentations of numerous student groups and subsequent debate and recommendations. However a summary of the discussion thus far was prepared by the chair and circulated to the committee. Modest feedback was incorporated to create a revised summary, which was further modified during the course of the April 20, 2006 ECAC meeting where this statement was then approved as amended.
Revised Summary of ECAC discussions on Hope's extracurricular climate and opportunities:
One of the things we unanimously agreed on as a committee was that Dean Frost's challenge to the ECAC (and its student representatives in particular) to assess the Hope College extracurricular program as described in the 10/14/05 ECAC minutes and summarized by the Chair as an assessment of "extracurricular opportunities and climate" was indeed challenging, somewhat broad and open-ended, and unlikely to meet with consensus among the seven members of the ECAC, much less the campus we represent. So we decided that our best approach was to list our most passionate or common subjective impressions, augment them with hard data from student surveys if possible, and provide Dean Frost and CLB with a sweeping list that clearly denotes what different stakeholders felt on the topic.
The following summary of concerns was generated by the Chair from the ongoing discussion of Dean Frost's charge and one recent committee brainstorming session, which the committee members were asked to review. The chair recompiled and redistributed the revised and annotated list for final discussion and amendment at the last ECAC meeting of the academic year.
Clearly, the number and type of student activities on campus is large and diverse:
This is viewed as largely beneficial by all constituencies represented by ECAC.
However some committee members felt that the list was too long, too specialized, and too likely to continue to grow far faster than student population. This growth in organizations outpacing growth in student numbers has already been evident for many years. The concern is that students are pulled in too many directions (having to choose between too many good options; or more likely over-committing to activities to the detriment of their physical and/or mental health, and/or their academic performance and/or their healthy social/spiritual life. An alternate view held by some was that the current unrestricted growth (so long as the conditions for group approval are met) is ideal, and that Hope should support as many and as varied an assortment of activities as possible (including extreme niche organizations given sufficient current interest) and counsel students to participate widely but wisely in those they value most. This laissez faire approach maximizes choice and variety, and minimizes hard decisions and artificial limitations, but does raise funding concerns and may not adequately protect students from the strain of over-commitment. However the larger contingent of the committee clearly saw the rapidly growing number of organizations as a concern. The idea of a numerical cap was discussed, but without much support. However it was agreed that growth ought to be carefully monitored and perhaps controlled in some way, and that organization and financial concerns related to (and growing out of) the number of groups need to be addressed.
A related concern is that attendance at events is sometimes poor, perhaps due to overscheduling. The creation and faithful use of a truly campus-wide master calendar to coordinate ALL campus events had broad support. The possibility of limiting what or how much can be programmed or scheduled for a single time slot (or by a single group?) was also raised - this was an idea worthy of further consideration, though no conclusive recommendation was reached.
Concerns over allocation of resources among groups were expressed.
1) The current model may allow some groups to dominate budgets due to size or high-costs.
2) Also, the uneven nature of groups and the inclusion of SAC as a student group complicates this issue. Should SAC be separate? SAC funding appears to come from the same pot as all the other student groups, but SAC (unique among organizations) has the mandate to provide programming of broad and general appeal across the campus community (as opposed to having a specific group of members or some other narrow constituency.) There seems to be strong support among ECAC to divest the funding of SAC from the remaining Student Groups.
3) Another suggestion was made regarding the potential for students to control where their personal Student Activities fee went. This could be direct (i.e., student specifies allocation) or based on a students membership or attendance. ECAC considered this idea at length, but was skeptical about the practicalities of implementing such a policy and therefore would not suggest such a policy.
4) A major financial concern raised repeatedly was fundraising saturation. First, too many groups are trying to raise money for good causes among a very limited resource pool (students, faculty, and staff are all in financially tight situations.) Second, a few major fundraisers (particularly Dance Marathon) dominate fund-raising and charitable giving among campus citizens. Much discussion was spent on the idea of making Dance Marathon less frequent or shorter in duration. Alternatively the structure could remain but the beneficiaries could change from year to year (or multiple beneficiaries could be included.) There was support for both ideas, though perhaps support for the latter was more broad-based.
Several ORGANIZATIONAL concerns were raised:
One organizational concern involves Student Groups of an academic nature. Those that are department-specific are not classified or funded as Student Groups at all, but rather housed and funded within the context of a home academic department. ECAC supports this current arrangement wholeheartedly. Likewise should other more "academic" groups that do not fit as neatly into a home department nevertheless be separated from the other types of Student Groups? ECAC expressed support for this reorganization that would separate ALL academic groups (whether department specific or not) from the other types of Student Organizations.
Similar concerns could be raised about groups of a volunteer / service nature. Should some groups fall into Volunteer Services (or other possibly some groups fit better within campus offices like Multicultural Life, Chapel, etc.)? Recent reorganizations, particularly regarding Volunteer Services, may require this issue to be revisited.
In general, the flat organizational structure of our extracurricular groups was noted. The pros and cons of a more hiearchical structure were discussed with no clear consensus on how to implement that onto our current model without serious difficulty (e.g. bigger groups subsuming/adopting smaller groups as sub-groups likely to offend and meet with resistance on both sides.) Thus a hierarchical model seems unlikely, though perhaps a reorganization of groups into academic / social / cultural / faith-related classifications etc. might be feasible to some extent.
Furthermore, this discussion reiterated the consensus that some review of the ongoing vitality and viability of groups must be made from time to time. Are they still meeting their constitution, mission, and mandate?
Additionally, while existing groups ought not to be combined, new groups should be more strictly assessed on whether or not they genuinely meet a new need or interest. If duplication with an existing group is noted, the newly proposed group ought to be encouraged (or forced?) to dialog with the existing group to see if collaboration or incorporation into that group is the best course of action.
Furthermore, existing groups should be encouraged to dialog, collaborate, and pursue joint programming at any areas of overlap. This could help address concerns of attendance, overprogramming, and possibly even budgeting!
Academic concerns were raised:
Faculty stated that by and large they see the extracurricular situation as healthy & beneficial; however there were definite concerns about a few notorious events that do seem broadly and reproducibly detrimental to student academic performance. Chief among these are The Pull and Greek Rush. To a lesser but still significant extent Nykerk and several club sports (particularly the Hockey travel schedule) seem to have some similar effects due to large and unregulated amounts of time at all hours being demanded of participants for practice and/or competition. Varsity sports get scheduling priority and have NCAA & conference regulations to drastically lessen this impact (though occasional detrimental impact on academic performance is still noted).
Students expressed some disagreement with this faculty assessment, particularly regarding the indictment of some club sports. While hard data is lacking, it was agreed that this is nevertheless the strong perception among many faculty. Student Development staff also mentioned Dance Marathon as a source of extreme stress and time consumption or exhaustion among students. Students agreed with this assessment of Dance Marathon. Faculty, however, saw far less evidence of an academic impact from Dance Marathon.
Finally, the committee unanimously reiterated two administrative concerns:
ECAC unanimously reiterated its perception of Student Groups/Organizations/Clubs as distinctly different from any competitive athletic clubs (i.e., "Club Sports", which fall in between Intramural and Varsity Sports.) The latter therefore ought to managed by an ATHLETIC body, not a student/faculty/staff governance body (e.g., ECAC) or Student Development. This reiterates our recommendation made earlier this year.
ECAC also unanimously reiterated that if ECAC is to continue to exist at all (which most believe to be worthwhile as an added source of student/faculty/staff input into student groups and a worthwhile delegation of initial assessment of groups) it ought to be as a standing committee of CLB, and not as an advisory committee directly to the Dean of Students. This too reiterates a recommendation made to CLB earlier this year.
Survey and report data could shed additional light on the status of extracurricular activities at Hope:
It is planned that ECAC shall review any 2006 Student Survey data relevant to extracurricular activitiess as it becomes available. At our final meeting of the 2005/6 academic year, the data was still in post-processing and not available. In any case, time would not have permitted its inclusion this year. Therefore this has been tabled until next year. ECAC can review the data at that time, and can prepare an addition to this report based on that data if that is deemed necessary.
It was suggested that relevant data might also be available in the most recent Student Development Student Activities Reports circulated electronically to all student group leaders. In the future this data could be compiled to yield additional hard data that could be coupled with subjective assessments to provide a better eventual plan of action. Whether this is the province of ECAC, Student Development or both can be addressed next year.
Addressing SPECIFIC QUESTIONS from Dean Frost's Charge to ECAC
In addition to asking ECAC to "assess the overall extracurricular climate and activities of College", Dean Frost (on behalf of his office and CLB) asked us to consider several specific questions which we have only begun to address.
Relevant section of 10/14/05 ECAC minutes, slightly modified to facilitate discussion:
Dean Frost also asked the committee(all of us, not just students, though students should perhaps be the loudest voice on many of these) to consider the following questions as they relate the campus culture for students:
1) Do we have the right kind of student organizations?
2) Does the Student Activities Committee (SAC) provide appropriate programming?
3) What are the benefits and/or concerns for having Greek organizations be a part of our campus culture?
4) Is it important for the campus to have the student groups, organizations and traditions that currently exist? Why?
5) How does student life shape the Hope experience for students in conjunction with academics?
6) Relationships are important in the development of the whole person. How do student groups help develop the whole person?
7) Who are students? What is relevant to their lives as students during their four years here? (The work that is done by Student Development and other ancillary staff must be relevant to students.)
Summary of discussion to date:
Thus far the ECAC has only been able to briefly consider questions 1-4. The chair has solicited individual responses from all current ECAC members to all seven questions, and will resume the discussion with the newly constituted 2006/7 Academic Year ECAC, of which he will continue as chair. At present, the following brief summary of the discussion thus far is all that can be submitted:
1) Yes, Hope does have the right "kinds" of student organizations. A broad assortment of academic, cultural, social, recreational, and service organizations are present on campus.
2) SAC does an admirable job of providing good programming for their target audience, and successfully shoots for the "broad middle." There is some concern that there is not quite enough SAC programming at the "margins". This is currently being addressed, with fairly weak attendance at less mainstream events thus far, and additional changes are on the horizon, so SAC programming should be reassessed in the next few years.
3) Greek organizations are beneficial in that they provide a recruiting draw, add to campus diversity, provide a unique type of organization distinct from others available at Hope, have a strong bonding influence on members, are frequently committed to service, have ongoing alumni involvement, and provide a generous and involved pool of alumni. Concerns include declining interest and numbers, particularly in fraternities; the ongoing concerns of hazing; the time commitment of Rush and Pledge periods; and ongoing concerns regarding alcohol and other "risk management issues." However current strict policies, organizational structure, and enforcement seem to be mitigating several of these concerns, at least compared to years past. Moreover the reform or traditional Greek "negatives" has recently been noted across campus and is ongoing.
4) Clearly the extracurricular groups and activities that currently exist contribute to the rich opportunities and traditions of the College. Almost all current activities, even those of which segments of the campus are critical, add to the Hope College experience and have passionate supporters among all the stakeholders. However there are several organizations and traditions which can be detrimental to the physical, social, or academic well being of students. It is therefore important that honest and realistic assessment is necessary on an ongoing basis, not to remove activities or traditions, but to periodically reform them. A largely successful case in point has been the reform in the Greek system at Hope in the past decade. Similar measures are necessary for other groups, organizations, traditions and activities to keep Hope a vibrant, healthy, and safe community for all stakeholders.
ECAC ought to continue to discuss questions 1-4, and also address questions 5-7, throughout the coming school year, but it was desired to provide all possible preliminary feedback at this point, so that the substantial efforts of the entire committee this year would not in any way be neglected in this important ongoing conversation.
