On Saturday, February 1, the Office of Student Life (OSL) and the Student Government Association (SGA) hosted Leadership Reconnect, a yearly morning and afternoon of workshops and information sessions for the representatives of all student organizations (SOs) on campus that happens every spring.
Organizations are required to send a president-equivalent representative and a treasurer, who attend different workshops geared towards their different responsibilities. Treasurers need only attend one workshop about how to run the finances of a student organization, multiple of which were scheduled throughout the day.
Presidents had to go to a four-hour session of workshops, starting with two hours of presentations from OSL about leadership and resolving conflicts within clubs. After that, attendees split into three different breakout sessions for lunch and shorter presentations. One of the presentations was delivered by the newly-inaugurated President and Vice President of the SGA, Samantha Molla and Adrian Castellanos, respectively. During the presentation, students submitted example problems and potential shortcomings that were used to facilitate a discussion about how to resolve said issues. Leo Pedraza, Assistant Dean of Students & Director of Student Life, held another session that centered on novel ideas for recruitment. The third session was about resources available to student leaders and the online tools for using them, such as DuckLink and Virtual EMS, and was hosted by Associate Director of University Events Ana Concepcion-Valentin and Student Life Advisor Danielle Maxson.
Problems began to arise in the third session when it was announced to a portion of the presidents that University Events would start enforcing a rule about tables for events with hot food. Starting immediately, RSOs would need to have tables for all catered events with hot food on lower campus, meaning they would either need to provide tables themselves or pay a nearly $80 setup and breakdown fee. They stated concerns that more permanent desks and tables around campus were slowly being damaged by the catering equipment used to keep food warm. Notably, the Wesley J. Howe Center and the Student Center could still be booked for events without the need to set up temporary tables, and events featuring only pizza still needed to use temporary tables.
After the breakout sessions, the full group of presidents reconvened for one more hour of work presentations and question and answer sessions. First was a short presentation about wellness from Gabrielle Guider, the Health Educator. Then, Sean Hanlon, a representative from the catering department, explained a set of new catering policies before holding a question and answer session about them. He explained that, as already has been the case since the start of the semester, all food and drink purchases for club events will go through Stevens’ food service provider, Compass One. In the past, it was very common for students to budget for food from local restaurants or ShopRite using Purchasing Cards (PCards), but now Compass One intends to provide most or all of the food on campus. If they are able to source the desired items, they aim to provide them to organizations at a price “even cheaper than ShopRite prices,” according to Hanlon, who also said that they plan to actively price match ShopRite specifically. They will also continue to source food from some local businesses, such as Benny Tudino’s, that have been working with catering for a long time. There will be exceptions for foods that Compass One cannot source, such as ethnic foods that their distributors do not carry. In this case, clubs will be given a waiver to purchase items externally.
The question and answer session became tense after these announcements, with multiple students beginning to record on their phones as soon as questions began. At first, students were mostly asking for clarification on specific aspects of the new policies, such as what could qualify for an exception, where catering would be getting food from, what would be available under the new system, and more. Then students began to question the policies themselves, and what they identified as issues regarding the policies. Some were concerned about the cost of going through Compass One, but Hanlon assured them that the prices would be the same or cheaper in the long run. Some were worried about the process required to actually get an exception, and one student described how they had already been sent back and forth between different offices trying to get approval for an event that had been planned and budgeted for last semester, only to find that the approved restaurant which Compass One directed them to did not serve the type of food they needed. They eventually sorted it out, but expressed concern about being sent bouncing between offices every time they had to host a similar event. Hanlon said that it should be easier to get a waiver in the future. Shortly after that, a student asked a sexually explicit question of Hanlon that graphically expressed how the student felt about the new policies. Maxson immediately jumped to the podium to shut down the discussion, saying it was rude, disrespectful, and unfair to Hanlon himself, who does not work directly with the department that the rules affected and was only there to communicate them to the students. Hailey Tanner, the SGA Vice President of Student Interests, reiterated that students were being disrespectful instead of working with the administration officials and asked that students stop recording.
Maxson and Pedraza then elaborated on some of the other motivations for the new rules. Maxson cited misuse of PCards; “PCard usage has become an issue […] The amount of purchases and receipts is, frankly, too much,” she said. “The sheer amount of money that is spent on snacks, we could be doing so much with that money. We could be having such cool, innovative programming and events on campus […] What else could you be doing with that money?” Maxson insisted that these policies were not intended to limit what clubs could purchase, but rather help curb unnecessary spending to avoid clubs losing PCards privileges entirely. After students voiced concerns about how the new rules might affect involvement on campus, Pedraza explained that food was not the answer to increasing attendance at events, instead encouraging better planning and more interesting, engaging programming. He went on to cite concerns that many students were only showing up to events to take food and leave without actually engaging with the rest of the event.
The day ended with many students still upset about either the new changes and their implementation, the student response to them in the Q&A session, or both. Groups of students gathered outside of Burchard 118 and voiced their concerns for almost an hour after the session ended. The Stute reached out to some of the students in attendance for their thoughts, but most declined to comment. “Obviously everyone is upset about the new policies because they came out of nowhere and are pretty restricting,” said Andrew Chesterman, President of Off Center. “However, I think that a lot of the reactions at the event were uncalled for […] I don’t blame the people who organized the event for anything that happened, but I do believe that the policies are ridiculous.” SGA Service Subcommittee Head Monika Geslak said that “at the end of the day, this isn’t about the food — it’s about the blatant disrespect shown by the administration for not giving us so much as an email.”
On February 4, Pedraza sent out an update via DuckLink that reiterated concerns about students voicing their frustration with the new policies with rudeness and contempt and proposed a new solution to the table issue. “University Events will provide catering tables in a number of classrooms where these are to be stationed permanently at no charge to you. They will also provide a list of rooms where a table can be accommodated for you to host catered events. In addition, a trash can will be provided for free for meetings and small events, but they will need to charge for larger events where considerable amounts of trash are expected to accumulate,” the statement read. Additionally, the statement clarified the need for the new purchasing policies: “Compass One is the exclusive caterer for Stevens, and therefore, they need to be consulted on all your event and meeting food needs. When they first came on board with Stevens Dining, they allowed for snacks to be purchased elsewhere because they were not equipped to meet those needs, but now they are willing to accommodate. In addition, student organizations were taking advantage of the waiver policy. Dining cannot determine if they can meet your needs if they are not given appropriate notice. Therefore, the Student Life p-card policy is now aligned with the catering policy […] since I began my time at Stevens in this role, several SGA representatives have shared their concerns with spending so much of the SAF funds on food/hospitality. Food can be an attractive addition to enhancing the experience of an event; however, it becomes an issue when food is used as a substitute for organized planning and focusing on the quality and impact of student programs. Far too often, we have seen students take event food and then scatter without care for the program content. Increasing the level of student engagement on campus will require intentionality, creativity, and organized planning.” Finally, Pedraza called for students to continue to work with OSL moving forward, writing, “I hope you will be partners in creating a vibrant student life at Stevens. My co-advisor, Danielle Maxson, and I will be working with SGA and our university partners to make sure that your events will have every opportunity to be successful. I encourage you to make appointments with Student Life if you have specific financial concerns for your organization, as well as meet with your Student Life liaison to help you brainstorm and support your programs.”
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