Dean Denard’s Position on Fishbowl Fails to Deviate After SGA Meeting

The overall sentiment of students leaving last night’s SGA meeting was that not much had been accomplished. While the senior class certainly spoke their mind, students who came hoping for a revival of Fishbowl were surely left disappointed.

Dean Carolyn Denard, away on a trip to interview Posse scholars in Chicago, was conferenced in for approximately an hour and a half, and spoke to a crowd that filled the back of Ernst in Blaustein. For this reason, most of the exchanges occurred between students and the Dean, instead of between students and SGA as many originally imagined. After Denard left, certain students stayed behind to continue to air grievances.

Before the SGA meeting, Ben Schachtel ’13 also held a “solidarity pre-meeting” to create a united student front and minimize chaos at the SGA Open Forum.

Schachtel spoke to approximately forty students assembled in Cro’s Nest (including Senior Class President Eli Kahan and Senior Class Council members) and explained that the source of most students’ frustrations was that the decision was presented as “this is the way things are going to be and you have no say in the matter.”

Various students voiced concerns that taking away Fishbowl wouldn’t solve campus problems of alcohol abuse or sexual assault, while others claimed that the administration was treating the student body like campers or children. These same concerns were echoed at SGA Open Forum.

Will Pisano ’15 announced towards the end of the pre-meeting that he had already drafted an SGA resolution, which was handed out at the meeting. “Pretty much what it says is we’re upset with the process that the administration went through to make this decision. CC is a campus community and as such we think there needs to be a dialogue around major decisions that impact the quality of student life here.”

Pisano further encouraged students to text or email their House Senators so the resolution has a higher likelihood of being passed.

At the SGA meeting, Schachtel addressed Denard first and articulated the concerns that were brainstormed in the pre-meeting. He began by reiterating that the students understand that the primary responsibility of the administration is keeping the student body safe. However, he said, “I speak for a lot of students when I say I take issue with how the administration decided to address the cancellation of Fishbowl.”

Schachtel’s main point was that the decision was made unilaterally by the administration, and the original “consultation” that Dean Denard claimed she had with student leaders was only a meeting to inform them of her decision. “We believe we deserve a higher level [of transparency] than that. We deserve to know why exactly that’s happening to a T.”

Schachtel articulated that many students feel that the cancellation of Fishbowl is the straw that broke the Camel’s back (pun intended). He explained that many social events have been taken away over the years and this decision in particular didn’t treat the students like mature adults.

However, Schachtel argued that students must be involved from this point on in speaking with the administration on exactly how this decision was made and what our options are from here, even if reviving Fishbowl isn’t one of those options.

“We as students are committed to fixing the things that went wrong that led to this. We are not standing here and saying that this is a screwed up thing that happened to us. We want to have conversation with Deans and say this is why we need to have a Fishbowl…Whether or not we get Fishbowl back we want to be a part of the conversation…If you give us more we’ll give you more,” he said.

Dean Denard first addressed the perceived threat to tradition that the abolishment of Fishbowl represents for many students. “What has gotten lost in the announcement was the second part…I think what many of you understand and value, and certainly I value, is this notion of tradition and what it means in the life of any community part in the life of the college community. One of the things I want to say to you is tradition is the repetition of the event but what is more important is what the event represents and what is the value embedded in it.”

Denard explained that upon arriving at the college in August, she received a letter from the Office of Student Life, detailing complaints and incidents concerning Fishbowl. She had never heard of the event until she received this letter.

“I read the report and there were things there that were very alarming to me and I knew that we needed to explore or investigate those and hopefully move beyond that. My own sense as a scholar who is very concerned about tradition was that we could keep tradition and take out the things that were making this an unsafe event,” she said.

Because she was away on business, Denard did not have access to this report or the specific statistics that it included regarding transports or sexual harassment. Upon her return she said she is open to disclosing with students the information that is not subject to confidentiality agreements. She did, however, cite injuries like broken fingers and poison ivy, as well as unwanted advances, transports and pressures surrounding public nudity that compromised the mental and physical wellbeing of students.

Denard mentioned that after receiving this report, the Office of Student Life conducted a peer institution review where they discovered that other NESCAC schools had recently eliminated similar events, but those schools made the decision too late, only after something tragic happened. The decision to cancel Fishbowl was thus somewhat preventative.

Denard then turned to the question of establishing a new tradition, something that many students claimed would be artificial and unlikely to last.

“In any culture when you are the person who can establish a new tradition, that is a pretty esteemed position because what you have to think about what has meaning for your class of seniors. I just thought here is a historical moment for the class of 2013…On the macro scale, the culture has changed and you are the unfortunate victims of that culture change. On the micro scale, it’s a safety issue for you it’s a liability issue for the college it’s a values issue for all of us,” Denard said.

The next student speaker was Mike Gulotta  ’13 whose presentation had a slightly different tone, “For this new tradition I would just like to say that traditions cannot be manufactured, you cannot just say that we’re going to create a tradition out of nowhere because it is not going to be a tradition. Also sending out an email is not going to end a tradition. People are going to do Fishbowl whether or not the college endorses it. This is going to create a Fishbowl that is more dangerous.”

Denard replied, “That is a valid point, new tradition is almost an oxymoron. That’s because you are far down on the line of history. All traditions start at some point.”

Answering the question about a non-school-sponsored Fishbowl, Denard said, “There are conduct guidelines for violations of that, and we can review that, but I think that it is short-sighted of you to think that we don’t try to solve what ails our community because people are just going to die anyway. I hope that you will participate in a way that is within the college guidelines.”

Instead of trying to recreate Fishbowl without college sponsorship, Denard hopes the student body will focus on the creation of the next great Connecticut College tradition. “Your class, the class of 2013, will always be the class that they go back to. Your class is inscribed in history in a way that no other class will be. I encourage you to step up to that rather than to diminish the moment.”

Kelli Bannister ’13 brought up an important point that not only are social events being taken away, but also they are not being concretely replaced. “The senior administration and SGA as well must be charged with the responsibility to invest in this community before you take from it. There are so few activities that are alternatives from the activities that have been taken away.”

In response, Denard reiterated her eagerness to work with students on establishing new traditions and opening the dialogue about the Fishbowl decisions, “I regret that you feel that these things are being taken away and nothing is being put in its place and what I would commit to you as dean of the college is to work with you to have that moment,” Denard said.

The final student speaker who directly addressed Denard was Quinn Menchetti ’13. He claimed that the students and Dean Denard were not “seeing eye to eye” on what shared governance means. “We feel capable of protecting ourselves and making decisions to protect ourselves, we would at least like an equal if not majority stake in those decisions,” he said.

He went on to articulate a concern felt by many in the room: throughout the night, the problems associated with Fishbowl – sexual harassment, injuries, alcohol abuse – were clearly not solely related to Fishbowl. Instead, these issues are indicative of larger problems at the college concerning the changing social life.

“Over-usage of alcohol is not a problems specific to Conn College. What used to be specific to CC was the way we handled it and that it worked,” Menchetti said.

Overall, many of the same student perspectives were heard and Denard’s response closely echoed the emails sent to the college community. “We all value what it means to have great memories of college life… The hard thing for senior administrators to do is to make decisions that we know are not going to be popular but that they are decisions that protect the health and wellbeing of the community…This was an event that needed to end,” she said.

Because Denard could not stay the length of the SGA meeting, she will attend an emergency follow-up meeting on Wednesday December 12 at 7 PM.