Student Representation: An Update on the Current State of Student Commission

by Emily Salswedel
During the winter quarter of the 2014-2015 academic year, Kalamazoo Colleges Student
Commission dissolved after, according to Dr. Sarah Westfall, taking a hard look at itself and
asking are we representing students in the way that we want to? Westfall, Vice President for
Student Development and Dean of Students, says they were concerned that the way Student
Commission operated was not as effective as it could be. She says, I think a healthy campus has
to have a healthy student government entity. Whatever its called and however its formulated,
there needs to be a way for students to engage in the civic life of the institution. Being able to
participate in the governance under democratic principles is really important.
Cameron Goodall, who was President of Student Commission at the time, says they had
been experiencing an identity crisis of sorts with regard to their impact on campus. Before
dissolving, one of Student Commissions responsibilities was to approve funding proposals sent
in by student organizations on campus. As the majority of their work as a group, this made them
question whether they had any greater significance than a being a campus bank of sorts.
Sophomore Chris Cribbs, a member of Student Commission last year, says he believes
the group served more purpose than this, and it was a poor decision to dissolve. He says without
Student Commission, there are no student representatives communicating issues between the
administration and the student body, and the absence of this communication is almost
undetectable to the greater student body. He says, Not having a voice only matters when things
arent going your way.

In previous years, another responsibility held by Student Commission was to be

appointed to, and attend regular meetings for different Faculty, Staff, and Board of Trustee
Committees. Faculty and Staff Committees include the Student Life Advisory Committee,
Educational Policies Committee, Experiential Education Committee, Information Services
Advisory Committee, Student Dining Services Committee, and Community Council Committee,
and The Board of Trustees Committees include the Investment Committee, Finance Committee,
Academic Affairs Committee, Advancement Committee, and Building and Grounds Committee.
Westfall, a co-chair of The Student Life Advisory Committee, says they have discussed
everything from big campus policy issues, to quality of life in the residence halls, and that
students voices in these matters are essential.
Dr. Eric Barth, the chair of the Educational Policies Committee, says their responsibility
is to represent all issues of the educational program at the college, such as changing the name of
a course, approving a new course, or reviewing courses that have come to their attention because
of student input. When they have had student representatives in the past, they have relied on that
student input to better understand students understanding of college programs, he said. We
might think that its perfectly clear, say, that a certain major program has several tracks and that
there are different ways to do each track, but the students might say oh, I dont think anybody
realizes that, he said. There then could be communication between the student representative
and students of that major to create a clean understanding of the programs contents and help the
committee to make any necessary changes.
Sophomore Elyse Tuennerman was a representative on the Educational Policies
Committee before the dissolve of Student Commission last year. She says I really enjoyed being
on EPC and actually I got to have a say in some pretty important things. She says there were

especially a lot of proposed changes to majors that really needed a student perspective, giving an
example that a department wanted to add a test for entrance into a specific major program. She
says, I think that it was really important to have a student voice in that room saying this is
absurd. It defeats the whole purpose of the K plan, and as a student that doesnt make any sense
to me.
After the dissolve of Student Commission, Tuennerman tried to stay very involved, and is
now the Office Coordinator of the Student Funding Board, a new, entirely separate entity that
was elected by the student body earlier this quarter. Students on this board ran for the positions
and were elected by the student body on January 15th, 2016. Westfall says their only
responsibilities are to receive and process applications for funding by student organizations on
campus. She says the Student Funding Board was created to keep the separation between student
governance, and the funding aspects that were previously the majority of Student Commissions
responsibilities. She says having them separate from one another should help the governance
portion of the work stay governance.
But there is still a big question here: What is governance? What does student governance
look like on the Kalamazoo College campus?
To hash out these details, and regain some student voice within these committees, a group
of three people, Brian Dietz, Associate Dean of Students, Dr. Michael Sosulski, Associate
Provost and Associate Professor of German, and sophomore Karina Duarte, created an
application, and application process for students who would be interested in sitting on any of the
Faculty or Board of Trustee Committees. The application was e-mailed out to the entire student
body by the Office of Student Development, and Duarte says the application process was a one
time, used-only-because-time-constraints solution for the selection of the representatives on

these committees. She says it was comprised of questions that asked the applicant why they were
interested in a position, which committees they were interested in, what they believe they could
bring to these committees, and why it is important to have a student on the committee. Duarte
says after receiving these applications, keeping in mind that as much diversity as possible was
desired for each committee (race, age, ideology, etc.), the group tried to pair applicants with one
of their top three committee choices.
This process ended with a group of 28 students that will now represent the student body
in these committees through the end of this academic year. There will be a traditional election in
May for next years new Student Commission, but, Student Commission may no longer be the
name of the group, and their responsibilities may be completely different from previous years.
On Tuesday, March 8th, the new group of students met and began a conversation to
hopefully answer these questions before the election in May. The printed agenda given to each
student was lengthy, and contained some heavy questions for consideration:
What does our leadership structure look like? While Dietz started the meeting, he
made it clear that no one person should be in charge of anything. This is a different structure than
the past executive board structure, in which the elected President, according to the current
constitution, served as the principle representative of the Student Commission to the faculty,
staff, administration, and Board of Trustees.
What is our purpose as a group? and What will we call ourselves? One student
mentioned the idea of calling themselves the Student Government Re-construction Crew, but
many students felt this wasnt an appropriate title for the groups current responsibilities. A
student asked Who here would like to be a part of reforming student government? Almost

everyone raised their hand, but not everyone, which made the important distinction that this
group is not a new Student Commission. Senior Dylan Polcyn, a member of the Student Funding
Board, and a new representative says he sees this current group trying [to] communicate with
the student body, and trying to put student voice on faculty committees. Make it really simple,
and really straight forward. He says, I dont see this as student government.
Considering Polcyns vision for the group, two of the biggest questions on the agenda
were How do we communicate with the student body? How can they give us input?
Tuennerman, now a representative for the Board of Trustees Academic Affairs Committee,
offered some insight on this topic outside of the meeting. She says she thinks our student body
Facebook page right now is a really good indication of the fact that we dont have a space to kind
of come together currently that is productive.
Tuennerman adds that the new, reformed student government will definitely need to
create a space for conversation, and that it may be through email, Hornet Hive, or even stay on
Facebook, but communication from the new representatives on the student body has already
begun. Polcyn recently posted a status on the student body page in which he said he heard the
school wont be offering the study away program in Philadelphia because Hope College, the
program organizer, will not allow the newly elected Program Director to direct the program
because he is Jewish. He mentions that he has recently been placed on the Community Council
Committee, which Polcyn says discusses the state of affairs in the campus community, and if any
students need information, or have issues, he would like to bring them up in a meeting. Students
began commenting in outrage as they have in the past, but also said they were commenting to
ensure they were informed of any new information..

One of the last things discussed at the meeting was the question Do we need to meet
again this quarter? Ultimately, the group of students decided this list was far too much to
discuss in only an hour, but needed to be discussed before the start of classes after spring break.
So, they split themselves into three groups to cover what they considered the three most
important topics, leadership structure, purpose, and communication. They plan to meet as
groups over spring break and discuss what was said during the meeting, and bring their
discussions on their specific topics to the next meeting scheduled for Tuesday, March 29th.
One of the last bullet points on the agenda read, What are our goals for spring quarter?
Tuennerman says she thinks a lot of what student commission did was sit around and
wait for a moment when it was needed, and those moments did happen when there was a big
campus issue and people needed a place to go or some group of students to say hey we need to
gather students about this, and someone would talk to Dean Westfall and get something
together.
During the meeting, each student was asked to write a hook, on a sticky note and place
it on the white board. Productive, collaborative, engaging, committed, organized, efficient,
respected, open-minded, enthusiastic, and successful, these were some of the things students
said they need the group to be in order to stay involved and engaged in the coming quarter.
Westfall says that her goal for the new group is for them to be very in touch with, not
just with students who are out front, they would really be in touch with students from every
corner of campus. She says while the school year has been bumpy without student
representatives, we do have an opportunity that most of us dont have in the course of our
liveswe can build a whole new governance entity from the ground up. Thats thrilling.

Contact Source List

Dr. Sarah Westfall, email: Sarah.Westfall@kzoo.edu phone: 269-337-7209
Brian Dietz, email: Brian.Dietz@kzoo.edu phone: 269-337-7210
Dr. Eric Barth, email: Eric.Barth@kzoo.edu phone: 269-337-7060

Chris Cribbs, email: Christopher.Cribbs14@kzoo.edu

Elyse Tuennerman, email: Elyse.Kaplan14@kzoo.edu
Alex Werder, email: Alexander.Werder@kzoo.edu
Cameron Goodall, phone: 248-622-8125
Karina Duarte, email: Karina.Duarte14@kzoo.edu
Van Forsman, email: Van.Forsman13@kzoo.edu
Document and Online Source List
Student Commission Constitution
Student Commission By-Laws
Student Government Committee Assignments
https://reason.kzoo.edu/provost/committees/