On April 14 President of the Student Government Association (SGA) May Yang announced at the faculty meeting that the class-colored OneCards will be returning.
At the request of the SGA, Dean of Students Liz Braun attended the senate meeting on April 13 and, after discussing the issue thoroughly with students, decided to reinstate the original OneCard system.
“To be honest, I had no idea that Dean Braun was going to completely withdraw the decision to change OneCard colors. Based on her e-mail response to SGA’s statement on the issue, I knew she was ready to have dialogues with students and maybe consider compromises for later on, which would be the norm for an administrator,” said Yang.
Dean Braun attributed her decision to the thoughtful feedback provided to her by the SGA.
“I take responsibility for my error in not consulting with SGA regarding the decision to change the current system of having OneCards correspond to class color. I agree with the SGA that the process should have happened differently,” said Braun. “I proposed to the Senate that based on their feedback we should return to having OneCards correspond to class color. In addition, any student that is reclassified and loses her OneCard can request to have her original class color on her OneCard when she goes to get a new one. This decision was unanimously endorsed by the members present at last week’s Senate meeting. I am very happy with this resolution and appreciate the opportunity to collaborate with SGA.”
Mount Holyoke students are equally pleased with this decision and the preservation of a treasured College tradition.
“I’m really glad they’re keeping the original system. I like knowing who is what year on campus,” said Sarah Hirshfield ’12. Alba Arteaga ’12 agreed, “That’s awesome that they are changing it back. It’s tradition and it should stay this way.”
“The way Dean Braun publicly apologized to the student body and handled the situation with expediency is quite admirable. Although I don’t know exactly why she changed her mind, I think that SGA’s responsiveness and professionalism helped articulate and legitimize the growing student disgruntlement. I hope that both students and administrators will learn from this incident as we strive to build a better community based on effective communication and collaboration,” said Yang.
Related posts:
- Staff Editorial: OneCard Policy
- Students, alumnae take concerns over OneCard to administration
- OneCards to be one color
- New OneCard works beyond campus and benefits College
- LITS to announce increase in OneCard printing allowance within the week
