The meeting started on a somber note: they first addressed the notable absence of Senator Dan Kauffman. “He’s in Ohio dropping off a dead fish to someone,” Pres AshHatch lamented.
Smoking Policy
The recently proposed update to the Smoking Policy didn’t garner much response from the student body, to the surprise of the Community Affairs Committee (CAC), the policy making body of the Reed faculty. The CAC received no comments. Senator Eileen Vinton reported that she received a total of two emails and one visit from a student in response to the policy changes.
The CAC is comprised of three faculty members and the Vice President & Dean of Student Services Mike Brody, and serves as a sort of middleman between the Senate and the faculty. Budding policies can go through two pipelines, faculty initiative or Senate initiative, which like the names imply, are written up by one party. They’re then given to CAC, who review the policy themselves, and then pass it on to the other party.
Vinton, who served on the student ad hoc Committee for Reviewing the Smoking Policy, explained that the impetus for the project was to create a policy that didn’t seem authoritative. The committee didn’t want to punish students who were respecting the current policy, and recommended a few changes to CAC’s proposal to make the new policy easier to respect. Vinton added, “we’re hoping that by recommending these changes…maybe honor and the social climate could change and not necessitate any policy regarding those spaces.”
Senator Kate Hilts said she was “generally in favor” of the changes, but thought the proposed ban of smoking in the quad was overkill, as she felt that the existing policy was fairly successful. Hilts commended the proposed amendments to the policy, like including more smoking shelters and butt receptacles, as they removed “barriers to compliance.” Senator Grace Haley echoed this sentiment, and suggested that “instead of prohibiting smoking in the quad,” the policy could stipulate more “butt receptacles in the areas of the quad that have less traffic instead of banning, so that honor can be the dictating force instead of prohibition.”
Student Molly Kimball pointed out there are places to smoke that may affect non-smokers less. “Smoking super far out on the front lawn is very different from smoking in Eliot circle.”
“I think it’s good to do something proactive and positive rather than banning smoking in one place,” Kimball said. She listed possible solutions, like having a specific place decorated with student art projects for people to smoke. Kimball stressed the importance of avoiding the image of “sad, solitary smoking upperclassmen” whom prospies or freshman might think were living “the life of the mind.”
“They’re just hanging out like everyone else, it’s not necessarily cool or anything,” she said. “It’s just another substance and some people don’t wanna be around that, I don’t think they should have to be.”
Reed/L&C Forum Postponed
After the events of West Ball, where a L&C student assaulted several people, two forums were proposed to discuss the relationship between L&C and Reed, and how to prevent this from happening in the future. The second one was to be held on Reed campus, but after racist and violent threats were made on L&C’s Yik Yak, the forum was converted to a space for students from both schools to discuss race relations in Portland. A member of L&C’s student government reported that L&C students staged sit-ins and protests after the threats were made, and are pressuring the Portland Police Bureau to investigate the threats, which still occur regularly. VP Nick Fiore said that out of respect for the L&C students, a forum regarding West Ball would be put off for some time, as Senate wanted to give L&C “some time to kind of heal, think, [and] have dialogues.”