This January, while students were home enjoying winter break, the Dean of Students Office successfully converted Bundy Dining Hall from a musty storage space and occasional dance floor into a parfait-filled gathering space for Greyside students. The Bundy Dining Hall renovation was celebrated across campus by both current and recovering Greyside residents as a much-needed change to what had once been the most isolated corner of campus. The Dean’s Office had listened to Hamilton’s students and delivered what they longed for — a new community center to replace the mid-winter marches to Commons that had defined Greyside life for so long. However they neglected to address one key point.
While ushering in the opening of Bundy Café, the Dean of Students Office quietly removed Bundy Dining Hall from both the social space lottery and the list of student social spaces available to host events with alcohol. In doing so, they reduced the number of such spaces by one-third, leaving only the Tolles Pavilion (Annex) and the Bristol Hub for social events with alcohol. Furthermore, the Dean’s Office eliminated Bundy from this list without once asking for student input on its removal and notified students of the change only after the fact. As a former Greysider myself, I applaud the opening of Bundy Café both as a source of fresh fruit and an alternative community gathering space. As a student of Hamilton College, however, I am deeply concerned at what appears to be yet another case of the Dean of Students Office ignoring our voices while pushing bullishly ahead with its own agenda.
In the weeks since winter break, concerned students have called upon the Dean’s Office to answer two main questions: Why was Bundy Dining Hall removed from the social space lottery and why were student voices not included in that decision-making process? Dean Martinez, in response, has both written a letter to the editor [Editor’s Note: Dean Martinez’s letter was published on page 4 of the Jan. 31 issue.] and defended her office’s position in front of Student Assembly. The last paragraph of her letter states her office’s reasoning clearly: although the Dean’s Office realizes that converting Bundy Dining Hall “reduces the number of locations available for student organizations to have parties […] data showed a drop in utilizing social spaces, Bundy in particular. Based on these data, and the input we received from students, we are confident we can provide an attractive café option and still meet the social space needs for student organizations.” While there has been a relative decline in the use of social spaces for events with alcohol in recent years, the other claims made in this statement are blatantly untrue.
Firstly, I’m concerned by Dean Martinez’s misleading statements on the level of student involvement in the decision to remove Bundy Dining Hall as a social space. While Dean Martinez did receive much student input on the creation of Bundy Café, her office entirely neglected to take student voices into account when removing Bundy from the social space lottery. Not only did she not address the changes when presenting her ideas to Student Assembly this fall, she also neglected to mention her plans to the students on the Alcohol Strategy Working Group she created specifically to discuss such issues. When I asked Dean Martinez in my capacity as a member of Student Assembly during this week’s meeting why she didn’t mention Bundy’s removal to the student body, she responded simply that “I didn’t tell the student body because you weren’t here.” To me, that response is emblematic of just how easily the Dean of Students Office disregards students’ voices at Hamilton.
Furthermore, the Dean’s Office wholly misrepresents the findings of the data (which has been released to Student Assembly by the Dean of Students Office.) While they correctly claim that overall use of the three existing social spaces that permit alcohol consumption has been in decline since the fall of 2015, the same data directly contradict their claim that Bundy is underutilized. In fact, Bundy Dining Hall has consistently been booked more times per semester than any other social space. These three social spaces are booked on the same night an average of over four times per semester, demonstrating a clear need for more than just two social spaces for events with alcohol. Dean Martinez also cited many students’ desire to have more weekend programming without alcohol — programming that a student might assume is available at the new Bundy Café until they check 25Live and realize that Bundy Dining Hall is closed for all Friday and Saturday events until June.
Going forward, I truly hope that the Dean of Students Office will listen to all of our voices more closely, perhaps by reopening Bundy for weekend events or by adding a new social space to the lottery. I did not write this article to dismiss their amazing progress with Bundy Café, but instead to bring to light what I view as a major cultural problem within the Office. Time and time again, students have called for more transparency and student input with decisions affecting their life on the Hill, yet the Dean of Students Office still ignores our voices at its convenience. I think it’s about time we make sure our voices are heard. I think it’s about time they listened.
