While many students tuned into the NCAA Tournament Monday night, 15 freshmen decided to forego the big game to discuss major issues of campus culture.
The all-student forum, called "Raise Your Voice" and set in East Campus' Lilly Library, aimed to identify freshman perspectives on the recently released Campus Culture Initiative report.
Amy Feistel, the FOCUS program coordinator, brainstormed the idea for the discussion, and five former FOCUS students implemented it.
"Students are more likely to say what they really feel if they are not inhibited by administrators being there," said Sudha Patel, one of the freshman organizers, about the event's setup.
Freshman Patrick Ye said the forum was an attempt to have a "bottom-up discussion" dominated by students instead of administrators.
Ye added that he thought it was beneficial to have all the freshmen together to weigh in on "things you wouldn't have heard in upperclassmen conversations."
The forum began with an agenda listing three main topics of conversation-residential living, social spaces/social opportunities and diversity of race and gender-but the discussion extended to many other issues as well.
Several students present were interested in answering the question of whether or not there is a problem on West Campus with largely white male fraternities dominating the social scene.
The participants discussed a number of different solutions, ranging from abolishing fraternity housing to allowing for sorority housing.
Students also discussed whether or not there are enough spaces for smaller student groups to hold social events and whether more of such spaces would enrich the social scene and cut down on dominance of fraternities.
Alcohol was another major topic of discussion. Some students said that a lack of on-campus bars or nearby off-campus bars causes a focus on fraternity section parties as the place to be on weekends.
"We brought about a couple of important ideas and offered some solutions, but I think we need more people to reach a definite conclusion," freshman Daniel Szoke said.
Szoke also felt that students should have had a chance to interact with administrators and writers of the CCI report.
Patel said a forum including administrators may take place in the future, but the next step is to hold more forums to get more people involved.
The organizers of the forum also recorded the event and plan to write a statement including the most important points and conclusions. The statement will be submitted to Provost Peter Lange and John Simon, vice provost for academic affairs.
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