Town meetings have varied sizes, results

Long-range planning teams held a Town Meeting last weekend in the most recent phase of the College's strategic planning process. The meetings were designed to elicit community input on the teams' progress and focus.

Attendance at the meetings was varied, but team members felt the meetings were positive. "I think they went very well. The ones I went to were very substantive," President Nancy Dye said.

The teams met in three sessions with four or five concurrent meetings going on during each session. Student, faculty and staff participants moved from meeting to meeting, listening to presentations by the planning teams and giving feedback.

Most teams presented a list of questions that the team used to shape its discussion, and let members of the group respond to the questions. The discussions varied in style, from organized to freeformed. Most participants felt good about the openness of the discussions.

Laura Iverson, a sophomore, attended the Campus and Community Space meeting and said the meeting was pretty productive in getting good points into circulation. She said there were about 10 students in the group which created a good talking size. "It seems like the faculty on the committee have student interests in mind," Iverson said.

"The turnout was fine. I wasn't sure what to expect, but generally the groups had a good turnout," Dye said. Numbers of participants varied from group to group. The average size was between ten and fifteen, but some groups were more sparsely attended. The diversity group attracted fewer than seven non-committee members.

One particularly popular meeting was Sports in the Future. The room was crowded with concerned members of the Ultimate Frisbee team and other athletes. (more on the specific planning teams)

The format of the meetings was well-received by students who attended. "I thought it worked really well. They did a good job of hearing everyone's concerns," sophomore Lisa Novins, who attended the Sports Committee meeting said.

Chris Lavin, a junior who also attended the Sports Committee meeting said, "The format was up to you. If you didn't say anything, it was your fault."

The meetings were part of the College's ongoing long-range planning process. The process began in the fall when focus groups eliciting response from students, faculty and other community members were held. Focus groups were open discussions from which Elain Kuttner's planning consultant firm wrote a focus group report.

The report was used to come up with topics for planning teams. The teams began meeting in February. Teams consist of both students and faculty.

This week teams were to write one page progress reports which will be presented to the Board of Trustees this weekend. After hearing the Board's input, as well as further outreach into the community, the teams will meet for another month and write a two to three page report presenting several broad strategic goals for the College.

After the teams write their final reports, which is expected to happen in April, the reports will be examined to see how they best fit together. "This discussion should be campus wide," Dye said.

Step by step: While long-range planning teams have made numerous attempts to involve students in planning for Oberln's future, few have been overwhelmingly successful. Last week's Town Meetings drew different numbers of student interest depending on the topic of discussion. (photo by Zach Fried)