Inside the Red Room: Demystifying Student Government

Hi everyone, Association of Amherst Students (AAS) President Charles Tufenkji ’28 and Vice President Joey Supik ’27 here on behalf of AAS. We’re very excited to introduce a new column to The Amherst Student: Inside the Red Room! We want to increase transparency between AAS and the student body, as well as our alumni. In these articles, our answers — and hopefully solutions — to campus issues important to the student body will come straight from the source: our meetings with the administration and the President’s Office. These articles may also include information from senators who serve on pertinent committees and have occasional updates for you all.

We decided to start this column with a scary issue we’ve learned about: the federal government’s upcoming policy concerning international students. In short, the government is attempting to make it functionally impossible for international students to remain matriculated in the college. We have reached out to Lawrence Kluttz, associate vice president for communications and head of government relations, to discuss the college’s efforts in response to this policy. 

Kluttz released to us the following statement: “International students are vital members of the Amherst community. Policies that impose new barriers and uncertainty for these students not only threaten them, but also a core strength of the American system of higher education.” He went on to mention that college leadership is actively discussing ways to support students, and included a detailed webpage resource from the Office of Immigration Services. He added that as the college learns more about how the federal government will implement this policy, it will also work with “national associations to support litigation challenging these changes and to advocate for policies that allow us to welcome talented students from around the world.” 

In the conversation, we learned that the college is working to address these upcoming changes. While plans are still evolving, we will continue to share information as we are able, and you can check this website for more.

Two quick-fire updates: we’ve been exploring alternatives to the Spring Concert, which we’re very excited to discuss within the senate soon. These alternatives include a potential University of Massachusetts, Amherst (UMass) Spring Concert collaboration, expanding our current raves, a carnival, a Five College Music Festival, WAMH collaborating with the Campus Activities Board for our current Spring Concert, and bringing back WinterFest. AAS will meet in the upcoming weeks to deliberate on which Spring Concert substitution would be the most desirable and financially reasonable.

We also hope you’ve noticed and appreciated our revamped email structure and newsletter; instead of sending individual emails for every event, update, and survey, we’ve opted to consolidate them into a single email. The goal of this change is to send independent emails only for issues of the utmost importance. As the weeks go on, the Public Relations Committee and individual senators will introduce more social media and communication-based projects, such as continuing dorm tour videos across campus and summarizing our meetings in one-minute videos, which we’re calling “Minutes in a Minute.”

The last three concerns we’d like to address in this issue are the following: the first-year students in Lee Hall, the new policy regarding the annual orientation performance “Voices of the Class,” and the lack of “Amherst spirit” in the new Ford Student Center (Ford). 

According to Dean of Students Angie Tissi-Gassoway, with an incoming class of 501 students, the Office of Community Living (OCL) assigned a floor in Lee Hall to first-year students this year. This situation — having first-year students live outside of the First-Year Quad — has happened before when necessary and is not a new policy for the college. Most of these students we’ve spoken to haven’t expressed any discontent with their situation. However, to guarantee that the students living in Lee have a great first year, we plan to work with our Orientation and First-Year Life Committee, alongside OCL and Student Affairs, to come up with unique projects and events, as well as an occasional check-in with the students, to maintain the positive first-year experience Amherst is known for.

The Voices of the Class event was subjected to a new policy: upperclassmen were allowed to view only the dress rehearsal, as the main performance was restricted to first-year students, and video or audio recording was forbidden without explicit consent. While we don’t directly have power over this policy, we plan to discuss it with Student Affairs and related groups moving forward, to hopefully either understand and agree with the rationale or get it overturned.

Finally, we’ve heard your complaints about the lack of decorations and “spirit” in Ford and Betty’s Kitchen. We are happy to announce that decorations, such as more bulletin boards and posters, will start going up on Sept. 14 and will continue throughout the week in preparation for the grand opening celebration on Sept. 18. We are also meeting with relevant administrators to propose an Ad Hoc Ford Committee for the sole purpose of listening to your feedback about Ford and Betty’s Kitchen.

In addition to this column, we will also be tabling in the new Student Center every Tuesday from 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. We hope you will come up to us and tell us what’s been frustrating you or, hopefully, what’s going well. We will also table once a month on Friday from 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. with a specific topic in mind, such as AI, Ford, grade deflation, and more! Charles will also meet with as many student groups as possible, including Student-Athlete Advisory Committees, DEI Representatives, resource centers, affinity groups, and some clubs. Historically, we’ve expected students and student groups to come to us rather than AAS reaching out to you all and getting feedback; we hope to change that. 

AAS is excited to tell you more next week about some of the projects we’ve been working on, and even more excited to have our first-year senators join us on Sept. 28! In the meantime, you can reach out to us either by email (ctufenkji28@amherst.edu and jsupik27@amherst.edu) or come up to us around campus or while we’re tabling.