Understaffed walls a central issue at the second Towne Meeting

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The second Towne Meeting of the new school year took place on Sunday, Sept. 18 at 7 p.m. in Palm Court. Lara Herzog, speaker of the Towne Meeting reflected on the meeting.

“We made quorum, we passed legislative items, it went really well.” Herzog said.

Students who attended the Towne Meeting may have noticed the rug in the center of Palm court. The rug is an effort by Herzog to provide a comfortable sitting space for students at New College events.

“It’s coming along really, well we definitely need a lot more help.” Herzog said, saying students can drop by Ham center on Wednesdays from six to eight to help with the rug, which is made out of shredded T-shirts and New college relics.

“My dream for the rug is that it will be the entire size of the center of palm court,” Herzog said. “It will have all of our new college memories imbued into it, it will be something special the students made by hand.” The rug is currently eight feet in diameter and continues to grow.

The items brought up to the students in attendance were renaming the Fire TA, appointing an accessibility representative. In addition, the Council of Green Affairs advised students on how to properly use the campus compost and recycling services.

Third-year and New College Student Alliance (NCSA) co-President Paul Loriston and several others took the floor to start the discussion of staffing walls this year, the only topic at this Towne meeting to see discussion time extended.

“This year what we’re seeing now about 10 to 15 wall slots are essentially at risk because there’s not going to be enough officers to staff them,” Loriston said. Many students voiced their concerns and ideas, suggesting different ways to acquire the estimated $10,000 the extra staffing would cost. Another facet of the problem that was brought up was the long, difficult process of hiring an officer to be part of the campus police.

“My first year at New College walls ended at 4 a.m.. These past three years walls have ended around 2 a.m. to 2:30 a.m.. A lot of people thought that was because of noise complaint issues but really it was because the Campus police couldn’t afford to hire an extra officer on duty for an extra two hours that walls usually lasted. So a way that they maneuvered around that staffing issues they made walls a little shorter towards the end of walls.”

Loriston and the other members of the NCSA closed the section of the meeting with an appeal to students to submit ideas on the forum and students list as to how the problem can be resolved. Lara Herzog intends to send out a survey on both the forum and students list to officially poll the student body.

 

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