On Wednesday, Feb. 27, the Student Diversity and Inclusion Council (SDIC) will host a town hall meeting from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. The meeting will be located in the A room of Lankford Student Union.
Paige Reitz, the committee chair for the SDIC, said, “The Student Diversity and Inclusion Council is a group of students who are working to promote inclusion and awareness about diversity and diverse issues on campus. It’s a council in that it’s more toward SGA [style] ... It’s very focused on this aim and this goal and we work directly with Longwood University councils, which is made up of primarily professors. ”
The meeting on Wednesday will be a “town hall" style meeting, where students can openly discuss and bring forth issues that they see on campus that they want the SDIC to try to mediate and resolve. “Last time [there was a town hall meeting] we discussed difficulties in some of the buildings not having very good handicapped access,” said Reitz. The last meeting was held sometime in November. Other issues discussed in the previous meeting included the fairness of some professors regarding their inclusiveness. “It’s basically an arena where we bring the council to the university so students can come and bring their issues forth,” added Reitz.
On Feb. 12, the SDIC hosted a panel in which members of Longwood’s faculty discussed the horrific event that was the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. and what could be done in the future to prevent similar events from occurring.
“It’s basically an arena where students can come forth,” said Reitz, talking about the town hall meeting,
“and discuss issues that they see on campus and allow some open dialogue discussion ideas about what to do about it so the council can then try to initiate those changes, to work on behalf of the student.”
The minimum number of these town hall style meetings is two per semester, equaling out to be around four per year. This is the first year where the SDIC has done this style of meeting.
The last town hall meeting of the spring 2013 semester is scheduled to be some time in April.
There has been talk about possibly opening future town hall meetings up so that the residents of Farmville will be able to partake in the discussion. However, due to the novelty of the style of meeting, the town hall meetings are only opened to Longwood students.
Regarding the number of students who show up to the meetings, Reitz stated, “We haven’t had a very good
turnout. Remember, it’s a very new thing [and] we’re still kind of testing the waters. The first one we had, maybe two people outside of the council showed up. But the second one, we actually had [around] five or so, which — with several members of the council plus the five outside people — it led to a pretty good discussion ...”
The town hall meetings do not have a general topic of discussion, unlike the panels with the exception of the event of no issues being brought forth. Anyone can bring forth an issue they see on campus, be they student or council member.
“The goal is for students to be able to come and say, ‘Hey, I noticed this about campus. What can we do about it?’” said Reitz.
To learn more about the town hall meetings, attend the meeting on Wednesday, Feb. 27 from 7-9 pm.
