Admins talk  eliminating activity period

by Lauren DiTullio, News Staff

The Student Government Association (SGA) and three Northeastern administrators heard student concerns Monday night regarding the proposed elimination of activities period.

The approximately 30 students in attendance brought up a wide variety of issues, mainly focused on the proposal’s effects on student groups on campus. Many students argued that losing a designated free time would be harmful to students who are involved with clubs.

“This is the one time during the week that you can assume with a certain amount of a confidence that someone is available,” senior chemistry major Marshall Brennan said at the meeting. “While you can make accommodations, you can’t deny the convenience of one set time for student groups.”

Vice Provost for Undergraduate and Cooperative Education Susan Powers-Lee said eliminating activities period actually decreases the chance of overlapping events and frees up students for more activities.

“You may not see this if you only have one student group … then your one group meets,” Powers-Lee said. “If you have multiple interests, and everything is meeting at the same time, it actually keeps you from doing things. If you spread it out … it increases the probability that you can go to the events you want to go to and do the things you want to do.”

The other administrators in attendance, Vice President and Dean for Student Affairs Ed Klotzbier and Registrar Linda Allen, expressed similar points of view.

“It may be helpful if you all would realize activities periods were born out of Northeastern’s commuter school past,” Klotzbier said. “As we became more residential, the discussion of whether or not we need them emerged. Other schools don’t have [them].”

The elimination of activities period is proposed to alleviate the university’s large percentage of occupancy. Classrooms on campus are 99 percent full during the busiest class periods. Scheduling classes during activities period would also create an additional 226 class sections available for students, which Klotzbier said would be highly beneficial to both students and faculty.

He said classes prior to 8 a.m. on weekdays and Saturday classes were also considered as an alternative to eliminating activities period, but that neither would be as appealing or effective for professors and students.

SGA Vice President for Student Involvement Mallory Brown asked students to share their concerns with her, saying she intends to make this transition as smooth as possible for groups that will be affected. She said she will be working to move groups that currently meet during the day into the evening without creating additional strain on the resources available at that time.

“Scheduling is something that we’re going to be looking at very carefully,” Brown said. “My job is to make this as easy for you guys as I can.”

Several students said activities periods are part of Northeastern’s appeal for students. Senior theatre major Kate Downey said she felt eliminating activities period would represent a “de-emphasizing of student groups” on the part of the university.

Downey is involved with the Silver Masque performance group, which meets during activities period on Wednesdays. However, Downey said she foresees more of an issue with competing for rehearsal space outside of regularly scheduled meeting times.

Following the meeting, Downey said she had mixed feelings about its effectiveness.

“I was very concerned with the fact that they didn’t have an answer for me when I asked what they were giving us [in return],” Downey said.

She also said students were not entirely respectful toward the administration.

“The belligerent nature of a lot of people there … I think that was pretty inappropriate,” Downey said. “I thought that there were some students that were being sort of aggressive and negative.”

Some officers of the Northeastern University chapter of the American Society of Civil Engineers (NUASCE), however, said that if activities period is eliminated, it will have severe negative consequences for their club. NUASCE holds a lecture series throughout the semester that brings in co-op recruiters and other professionals during activities periods.

“I think this neglects professional organizations like ours,” Vice President Ezra Jampole said.

Jampole said the group has 254 members and more than 100 students often attend these lectures. He said he doubts that a room of sufficient size will be available to house that many people during the day, because they are most demanded by professors. More importantly, group president Andrew Baummer said speakers are unlikely to be able to make it during the evening.

“When we have people come, they’re often sponsored by a company,” Baummer said. “If they’re not on company time, that’s asking them to take time out of their personal life.”

NUASCE also has two competition teams – Concrete Canoe and Steel Bridge – which already meet in the evenings to design their construction projects. The group also does community service events. Jampole said he is concerned that the group’s membership will fall due to the change in schedule, if it is implemented.

“We have members involved in all these different projects, and it all starts as a name from a sign-up sheet at one of our lectures,” he said.

Baummer said he does not foresee the lecture series being able to be accommodated in the university’s schedule if it changes next fall.

NUASCE is one of only four groups to have complained to Brown at the time of Monday’s meeting.

“This will not be closed communication if it passes,” Brown said. “It is going to be very open … we are planning to make every effort to accommodate your groups and listen to your concerns.