The following are reflections by team members on the discussion and feedback in their meetings. Other teams not represented in these two sections are dealing with the Arts Community, Technology and the Community Beyond the campus
"My interests in the meeting process were to get a broader scope of ideas and needs to bring back to my planning team. I started off the meeting by giving a brief overview of our discussions thus far and some of the issues that have come up in thee process. We then went around in a circle talking about our individual interests in interdiciplinary education, all of which were unique ... I felt that as a student facilitating this meeting I was personally invested enough in the issue to raise questions that were geared toward positive, pragmatic discussion."
"We heard from voices that we had not yet heard from and we received affirmation of some things we had been considering. I was a bit disappointed that relatively few students chose to show up at our meeting, but perhaps in retrospect it was not all that surprising since our topic area is not one of the more controversial."
"The room was well-filled and the participants were quite vocal. I think that the meeting did a great deal to reinforce trends that we had been seeing among our own members and the SAC ... The greatest fear for the future is that ... if it becomes impossible to survive as a science researcher at Oberlin we will have a great deal of trouble recruiting the best faculty."
"Many of the students attending these meeting have come from student arts organizations. These students have pressed for student run exhibition performance spaces, but they also stress the need for facilities meant for the production of these artistic endeavors.
"Another issue discussed was whether there should be a new campus space that fosters a greater sense of community that what the campus has presently. Many in the group contend that Wilder does not effectively do this, partly because it lacks an open, aesthetically pleasing area for the student body to meet as a whole.
Some on the committee thought this sort of common area might also be a way to bring students from north campus and south campus together. This space might perhaps be a combination of Wilder and other performance spaces on campus.
Some on the committee expressed the possibility that such spaces might be strategically located in order to bring students from different disciplines together. The aim for this space would be to maintain the kind of interaction that takes place out on Wilder Bowl during pleasant weather all through the year. Therefore the space must have some sort of central location.
Copyright © 1997, The Oberlin Review.
Volume 125, Number 17; March 7, 1997
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