Bandwidth issues, honesty policies, study hours and a potential student center will be discussed at next Monday’s School Congress. School Congress sessions are joint meetings in which Student Council has the opportunity to meet with the faculty to discuss campus issues and concerns relevant to all members of the Phillips Academy community. “School Congress is mainly here so that students can keep in contact with the faculty,” said Student Council President Tantum Collins ’08. In the past, School Congress has been held in Kemper Auditorium and has included Student Council giving either an update or a presentation about a specific topic or issue to the faculty members attending. This year, the format will be slightly different. At the suggestion of Fernando Alonso, director of Philips Academy’s (MS)2 program, School Congress this term will be held in Samuel Phillips Hall rather than in Kemper. The members of Student Council along with the attending faculty members will be split up into different groups, with each group occupying a separate room. This separation will allow for each room to have its own discussion topic, an efficient way of covering several topics of discussion at once. There are currently a handful of different issues on the table for discussion at the upcoming School Congress, though, according to Collins, all of these topics are still preliminary. One topic expected to be discussed is technology, specifically the issues being faced regarding bandwidth. The central talking points for this topic are expected to be the extent to which the one gigabyte bandwidth limit is effective and the amount of bandwidth students really require. The Congress also plans to discuss the amount of time students use on the internet for homework relative to the time they spend for fun. Another preliminary topic is honesty. This discussion will chiefly include views on whether or not campus policies promote honesty and how people feel about the strictness or the leniency of these policies. The question of how effective study hours are will also be up for debate. Student Council will talk with the faculty about whether or not room restriction is actually resultant, since theoretically being alone in a room with internet access is just as distracting, if not more, than trying to work in the library. They will also discuss the rule against having underclassmen in Ryley Room during study hours, and whether this is good or bad or even effective. Another room will discuss student centers. This will primarily include conversation on the new GW renovations, the upcoming commons renovations and the movement of Ryley Room to Underwood as Ryley begins to go under construction as well.
