The two front-runners in the upcoming elections for Student Body President are both taking credit for the fight against the administration’s revision to the Residency Policy in February, better known as the latter half of Beta-Gate. With this in mind, and as there has been some confusion on the facts, I’ve decided to write briefly to describe what actually took place, who was involved, and what they did. Having done much of it myself, and inhabiting our base of operations near-constantly for those two weeks, I believe I can give an accurate description of events.
Firstly, there was the WSA meeting on February 20, at which nearly all representatives, including current candidates Zach Malter ’13 and Joe O’Donnell ’13, voiced strong opposition to the policy revision. A resolution was written and a task force was created to deal with the issue. That task force met late in the evening of the 21st. Ideas for action were tossed around by many of the twenty or thirty attendees, a few from Zach and a few from Joe. Micah Feiring ’11, who had been leading the discussion, asked for someone to take on a leadership position for carrying these projects forward, and there was silence throughout the room, but eventually Zach rose from his seat and took over where Micah had left off.
Eventually, after two hours, that meeting had devolved into bickering between various factions, arguing over what was the best political approach to the problem. Our productivity had fallen off a cliff. I got up to leave, and on my out received a call from Zach asking me to join him and a few others in the WSA Office. There we set up a complete plan for the coming week on how to get the message out, organize students and student groups, and engage with the administration in advocating a reversal of policy; we effectively completed what the task force set out to do in less than half the time it took everyone else to get virtually nowhere.
Over the next week, Zach and I collaborated for hours each day, discussing nuanced approaches to addressing the issue, organizing small protests in front of Admissions every day, writing literature on the issue for the trustees and the students, dropping lit to student dorms. Zach and I reached out to students and student groups to organize the protest at the trustees’ meeting, talked with the press, pitched tents and made signs, spoke with administrators and trustees both via email and in person. As far as I am aware, Joe was not involved other than participating in one of the admissions protests.
The work Zach and I did over those two weeks, along with the work of a few other representatives and students, resulted in a successful rally on Friday the 25th in front of the trustees and a successful and well-attended WSA meeting (for once) at Beta on the 27th, and finally an apology from President Roth and a removal of the offending sections of the revised Residency Policy.
I hope that this has provided some clarity on the events of Beta-Gate. It is only fair that the student body be presented with the facts in order to make up its own mind. Please see me (email: atrexler@wes) or any other involved representative if you have lingering questions.
Trexler is a member of the class of 2014.
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