The Student Council, in conjunction with the administration, is considering producing a guide to daily Phillips Academy life, temporarily titled the “BluePages.” Although still in the early developmental stanges, the guide is meant to provide relevant information to campus life rather than reprinting rules and regulations already in the Blue Book. If approved by the administration, the Council hopes to be able to provide students with the “BluePages” as early as this coming fall. The “BluePages” project is currently in such preliminary stages that the Student Council has yet to vote on it. Student Council President Kanyi Maqubela ’03 explained, “The Student Council must [officially] approve the proposal [by vote] for a Guide before the project can be realized as ours.” If the Council approves the idea, it will then be presented to the administration, which appears to be in support of the idea. “I told [the Council] that they should certainly continue with their work, as it seems a good idea to me,” Dean of Students Marlys Edwards stated. Though the guide is an innovative step to catering to students’ needs, the “BluePages” is not an entirely novel idea. According to Maqubela, he had discussed the idea with former Student Council President Spencer Willig ’02 during last summer. Both Maqubela and Willig, however, expressed initial concern with length and redundancy within the guide. To reconcile these concerns, Upper Representative Fan Wang ’04 developed a guide based on Willig and Maqubela’s idea, but he focused more on the convenience it would provide to the student body. Wang explained, “The ‘BluePages,’ as it is called now, is focused on daily living and academic things.” A subcommittee on the “BluePages” has been formed within the Student Council, composed primarily of Junior, Lower, and Upper grade representatives. The two co-chairs of the committee, Maqubela and Wang, have prepared a prototype of the guide, which provides outlines of the major categories to be included in the final guide. If approved by the administration, the guide would include a section about Andover restaurants- complete with location, phone number, cost of food, hours, and average delivery times. A train schedule and in-depth information about malls and movie theatres, including ticket prices and phone numbers would also be provided. The “BluePages” would also be a useful tool on the Andover campus, outlining when major student publications are produced, when clubs meet, and special events that certain clubs host. To aid in one’s academic planning, the guide would provide a chart explicitly explaining the diploma requirements for a four, three, two, or one year student at Phillips Academy, a resource which some students feel the Course of Study does not clearly state. Furthermore, congruent with the term “Insider’s Guide,” which many colleges and universities offer their students, the “BluePages” is expected to clearly outline tips on choosing courses. These include the different levels of calculus courses, the option of taking an intensive language course, and the correlation between math placement and science placement. Finally, the guide would list the places at which students may receive study help and the general hours of operation of major buildings on campus. To ensure that new students do not feel out of the loop, the guide would clarify the meaning of such campus terms as “GW,” “SamPhil,” and “IP,” as well as describing such events as Grasshopper Night, Quad Day, and the Sadie Hawkins Dance. Although numerous ideas concerning the details of the elements of the guide and the specifics of its implementation are still being weighed and considered, general enthusiasm for the “BluePages” is apparent across the board in both student and faculty circles. The next step for the Student Council is to finalize its proposal into a concrete presentation for the administration. If this is completed successfully, “it is likely that the Student Council will combine its efforts with the Communications [office] to produce a finalized guide,” said Maqubela.
