Since the beginning of Fall Term, the Lawrence University Community Council (LUCC) has been launching their new Committee on Student Services and Advancement (CSSA). According to LUCC President senior Isabel Dorn, CSSA is the product of having unified two separate committees with similar goals of service provision for students, the Student Welfare Committee (SWC) and the Committee on Volunteering and Engagement (COVE). CSSA co-chairs sophomore Michael Hale and junior Lillian Sandberg summarized the committee’s main goals as promoting access to different Lawrence student services, such as Campus Safety and the Center for Academic Success (CAS); expanding services to best suit students’ changing needs; and ensuring that students have the opportunity to communicate service-related concerns.
“We’ve created a sounding board for students […] about […] a couple of specific but important issues,” Sandberg said. “We will make sure they’re funneled to the right people, and that students stop feeling that they’re screaming into a void of what they want changed and there’s nothing being done [or] no one’s actually listening.”
Sandberg said that CSSA works towards these goals by bringing the staff responsible for creating change into direct contact with students, with the committee acting as a bridge between the two parties.
“[In CSSA meetings, y]ou’re talking directly to [Vice President for Student Life] Chris Clarke, or […] directly to the Director of Dining Services […] or all of these different people, and it becomes a nice dialogue,” Sandberg said.
Hale recognized that, while LUCC General Council (GC) meetings are an option in which students can voice their concerns, the prospect can be daunting. He suggested that students may find it easier to voice their concerns directly to the service representatives in the smaller group that CSSA brings together.
“You go into [LUCC GC meetings] and you’re faced with all the committees — you don’t know who to direct things to,” Hale said. “You come to us, and […] you’re typically already face-to-face with them.”
Each week, CSSA focuses on a different student service, according to Hale. He said meetings typically begin with a service-centric general question and discussion forum and move into a more focused dialogue on the weekly highlighted service. He said another forum is held at the end for students unable to make it to the one at the beginning of the meeting. Sandberg said that, alongside voicing concerns, CSSA meetings also allow students to pose questions about lesser-known services to the service’s representatives.
Most recently, Hale said CSSA hosted a Residential Education-related meeting, where students met with Director of Residential Education & Housing Steph Knoppa and Assistant Director of Residential Education & Housing Linus Chun as representatives of the department alongside the LUCC Residential Life Committee. Next week, they plan to bring in representatives from the university’s food provider, American Dining Creations (ADC), to open a dialogue on Dining Services. Next term, Sandberg said CSSA plans to open dialogues with the CAS, the Title IX Office and the Conservatory of Music, to name just a few. Hale also said that the committee plans to revive the Sustainable Menstruation program next term as a non-departmental student service.
Sandberg and Hale agreed that, with CSSA still in its infancy, there are some challenges the committee has been attempting to overcome. Sandberg said that having meetings during more accessible times is one of their goals going forward. Currently, CSSA meetings are held during the lunch hour, but she said they came to find that this time frame disadvantages those attending studio rehearsals, Student-Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC) meetings and other university commitments. To mend this, she said that starting Winter Term, the committee plans to hold meetings at different times on different days of the week to give the widest number of students access to their dialogues.
According to Sandberg, some services — she named Dining Services and Campus Safety as examples — will be met with consistently every term. Others, she said, will rotate yearly or less often, naming Wellness Services, Title IX and the CAS as a few.
Dorn hopes that CSSA will continue improving in providing actionable solutions for student concerns on services.
“Nine times out of 10, when there’s a problem on campus, the [main] reaction is to get upset, like ‘why is it like this?’” Dorn said. “What we’re trying to do is bridge that gap and [communicate to students] […] the reasons that it is like this, who can we talk to to see if there’s a way to improve this and look for a solution.”
The CSSA co-chairs urged students with questions about the committee to reach out to them at lillian.r.sandberg@lawrence.edu and michael.m.hale@lawrence.edu.