Now, with a strong wind behind its boat, the FUSA Senate decided to change the direction of its sails.
The Senate decided Sunday night that it would not protest on Accepted Students Day, which will take place on April 12. The Senate Student Life Committee initially told The Mirror on April 1 that they would pass out flyers to incoming students on the Off-Campus Border lottery issue.
Over the course of the year, the Senate has expressed complaints with various issues with the lottery, namely the release of only four students per group and the alleged “gentleman’s agreement” with the town of Fairfield.
The Senate made the decision in light of a statement released by Dean of Students Tom Pellegrino, in which he proposed that student leaders make a presentation to the administration during the week of April 14. Pellegrino wanted to make it clear that the proposed idea is not a “bait and switch” tactic.
Jeff Seiser ’10, who starts his term as FUSA President on Sunday, April 13, said that, in a meeting with Pellegrino, his proposal would be open to all students who wanted to voice their opinions. In addition, Seiser anticipates that Director of Residence Life Deb Cady, Vice President of Student Affairs Mark Reed and possibly a selectman from the town of Fairfield will be able to answer student questions. Many FUSA officials echoed the same anticipation.
“It is our responsibility to work with the administration,” said Seiser. “We have got their attention. We should take their offer and work together to fix the problem.”
But Seiser did add that if FUSA continued to be ignored that he “would support a protest.”
Kaity Noone ’08 initiated the conversation on the OCB protest by saying she did not know if the protest would be the correct way to go about doing it.
“We need to keep moving forward on this issue,” said Noone. “While we wanted to take a stab at the administration, we don’t want to take a stab at admissions.”
Jamie Abromaitis ’09, who presented on the issue said, “We felt that we were almost going to punish the accepted students and admissions, in holding the protest on that day.”
Dan Lamendola ’09, a current Senator who will take over as Senate Chair next week said, “The issue is not when, but how we present our case.”
“[Dean Pellegrino] is eager to help but does not know what our concern with the OCB lottery is,” Lamendola said. He then stated that he is not even sure that Senate actually knows what their concerns are.
Adviser Caroline Joy said that it was important to look into all options for confronting the issue before doing something that will not turn out as planned. Joy said to think about new executive board taking over because it will ultimately be their mess to clean up.
John Daly ’08, president of the Senate and FUSA vice president, said that the executive board advised against holding a protest on April 12, and that the executive board stands behind the idea of the forum.
Sen. Steve Liguori ’09 said, “We have exhausted a lot of options and the whole purpose was to get people excited and I still feel that some action needs to be taken.” Mark Amsbaugh ’08 said “students felt April 12 could really happen [and] were excited about it.”
Though they did not vote on the issue, Senate came to the understanding that they would not proceed with the accepted incoming students day protest. They decided, for the time being, to follow the path set forth by Pellegrino in his response. A date for the forum is expected to be announced in the near future.
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