By Margaret Ernst and Elizabeth Held

Bryn Mawr’s "Big Cheeses" sat in front of SGA on Sunday, revealing insight about their future plans and their current availability to students.

President Jane McAuliffe, Dean of the College Karen Tidmarsh, Director of Residential Life Angie Sheets, and Jenny Rickard, newly appointed as chief enrollment and communications director, were on hand to answer student questions.

Toward the end of the forum, one student questioned what the administration is doing related to changing alcohol policies, like increasing security at Radnor Halloween.

“My policy on drinking on campus is the laws of the commonwealth of Pennsylvania,” McAuliffe said.

McAuliffe said she is concerned when she hears about Bryn Mawr students being taken to the hospital for alcohol poisoning, and her chief suggestion was for students to “nurture” each other more.

“Be ever more vigilant with friends,” said McAuliffe. “Because people die from alcohol poisoning.”

Sarah Capasso ’11, Radnor Dorm President, said McAuliffe’s advice about the alcohol policy “was not helpful.” Capasso was in charge of Radnor Halloween and was under the impression that the administration was behind the changes in the policy.

“She acted as if she was surprised about the changes,” said Capasso about McAuliffe. “If you’re going to try to change something, you need to own up to it.”

One student who wishes to remain anonymous felt similarly concerned about McAuliffe’s words about alcohol.

“Her concern should be our safety, not our morals,” she said.

Another item on the menu was the language requirement.  It could be in the process of changing, Tidmarsh said. Tidmarsh said the changes will not affect any current students, but could go into effect for the class of 2014.

Currently, incoming freshmen who have gotten high enough grades on AP or IB language exams do not have to take any language at Bryn Mawr.  Those who do not test out of the requirement must take two years of language classes.

The new requirement will close the disparity: a two-semester requirement for all students, regardless of whether they have tested out.

Those two semesters will be at “whatever level applies to them,” Tidmarsh said.

McAuliffe said environmental sustainability is “very much on everyone’s minds,” and at Bryn Mawr, it is a “work in progress”.

Currently there is a committee working to evaluate the campus’s carbon footprint, which McAuliffe said is comprised largely of electrical use.

Sheets emphasized that sustainability is one of the things “most talked about” in meetings about renovation projects.

Bryn Mawr and Haverford’s administrations continue to seek out modes of collaboration, according to McAuliffe, and next on the list is the Registrar’s office.

“We are aware that it’s a total mess,” McAuliffe said.

Many of the problems with the Registrar at both schools are technological, McAuliffe said.  The goal of collaboration is for bi-co students to move seamlessly between the schools’ Registrars.

Last year’s plans for Bryn Mawr to establish a satellite campus in Abu Dhabi are not happening because of the economic downturn, but McAuliffe said she is searching for other destinations for international collaboration.

 “I’m in prospecting mode,” said McAuliffe.

She will probably make a trip to Asia in January as part of her efforts to “scan the globe” for another location for a satellite campus.

The theme of the last questions to McAuliffe had a theme: in what ways is the administration engaging with students?

During her second year at Bryn Mawr, McAuliffe said she primarily wants to be in a “listening mode”.

She brainstormed ideas about different ways she could become available to students, like inviting the senior class to dinner at Penn Y Groes and some form of office hours.

“I’d love the chance to talk with students,” she said.

McAuliffe described the dorm desserts held in the beginning of this year, and said she’d be willing to hold more. She said if students have ideas about how she can become more available to them, she’s “generally interested”.

Yet after the meeting, an anonymous student felt skeptical.

“It was just very obvious that she just doesn’t know who we are,” she said. “She just doesn’t know who her student body is.”

Related articles

• Bryn Mawr’s ‘Big Cheeses’ Field Student Questions at SGA
• BMC Language Requirement to Change
• Arrests and Alcohol Poisoning Mark BMC Halloween Despite New Rules
• Mawrtyrs Attend Alcohol Conference at Princeton
• BMC Mulls Party Policy Changes
• President-Elect McAuliffe Meets with Mawrtyrs
• Bryn Mawr and Haverford to merge Dining and Security Services, Look to Further Collaboration
• Staff Editorial: Keeping Social Justice Changes Quiet Undermines Students
• Bryn Mawr’s Dean of the College Karen Tidmarsh begins her last year as Dean of the Undergraduate College
• Globalize, Collaborate, and Skype at BMC?