House presidents have had enough. Frustrated, feeling taken for granted and ignored by the administration, they won’t put up with it any longer. This Sunday, April 10, 14 of them gathered in Seelye Hall to finalize their plans for a mass resignation from the House President Association. On Monday, April 11, 24 house presidents submitted their resignations, while three more wrote letters of support.
At the April 10 meeting, the house presidents finalized the list of demands they planned to send, along with their resignations, to administrators, the Board of Trustees and President McCartney’s cabinet. They planned to synchronize their emails, having them flood into administrator and board member inboxes at about 10:30 a.m. the next day. At the meeting, Jess Buslewicz ’22, Lawrence House President, likened it to a virtual sit-in, with HP resignation emails “just sitting in their inbox.”
This moment has been a long time coming, according to Heidi Comeau ’22, President of Albright House and acting Chair of the House President Association (HPA). “It’s definitely been a year of building frustrations,” Comeau said, citing issues with the way student mental health is addressed on campus and recent revisions to the house social system. She also wanted to support Maddy Pfaff ’22, the former Chair of the HPA who effectively resigned Thursday, April 7.
“I feared that if there weren’t additional HPs standing up for ourselves, they’d just think it was a problem of one person taking on too big of a workload or something like that,” Comeau said, “rather than evidence of student leaders continually being exploited by the college for our emotional labor and other labor.”
At the meeting, and through various collaborations, resigning house presidents wrote a five-page document of demands for the college. The document begins, “Over the course of this year, house presidents have worked tirelessly to improve the college and have provided feedback to the administration on a range of policies, from mental health to social system changes. At every stage, we have been ignored.”
The resigning presidents have eight major demands of the administration, most with multiple subpoints. These demands include better communication from the administration, increased student representation on committees, increased mental health resources, the development of a protocol for traumatic, campus-wide events, increased support for HPs in creating “diverse and inclusive house communities,” increased compensation for HPs and more student feedback incorporated into the changes to the house social system.
“At the core of each of these points is that they’re not listening to us,” said Sasha Zeidenberg ’22, Duckett House President, while the HPs were refining their list of demands during the meeting.
The Dean of the College, Baishakhi Taylor, said that the college takes student concerns seriously and has invited the protesting HPs to meet with her and Dean of Students, Julie Ohotnicky, later in the week.
The lack of support from the administration after the death of a student and other traumatic moments this semester led to the HPs’ demand that Smith expand mental health resources by hiring more therapists, providing more support in crisis situations, creating online scheduling with the Schacht Center and not asking students to monitor the mental health of other students.
“We all became counselors for our houses overnight after [the student]’s death,” said Buslewicz. “We are not therapists. I can’t do that.”
House presidents also expressed that they were cut out of communication with the college, and that when they raised issues, those issues were largely not addressed. At their meeting, HPs shared stories about the lack of communication from the college on issues important to their houses. One mentioned that they were not informed by the college when their house’s common room was turned into temporary housing. Another was not informed when all the showers on their floor were turned off. In her resignation letter, Buslewicz called the college’s actions towards student leaders “unacceptable” and “frankly, negligent.”
The house presidents were still expected to enforce the college’s policy, like their reforms to the house social system, the way that house councils organize and register events. Certain events must be registered to be allowed by the college.
The changes were announced to the HPA about a week ago at a meeting with the Director of Residence Life, Hannah Durrant. In developing the reforms, a working group had polled 262 students, 210 of whom felt that the party registration system was too complicated, and 213 of whom wanted more parties sponsored by the college rather than the houses.
However, under this new plan, all house events, not just parties, would have to be registered, and instead of the college throwing parties, houses would be given money and encouraged to throw campus-wide parties in the Campus Center.
“This was a huge disconnect between the data they’d shown us seconds before they told us that,” said Buslewicz. “I was like, ‘I have never felt so disrespected in my life that you have wasted my time. Why ask me to fill out a poll if you are going to ignore it? Students are telling you what we need’.”
Buslewicz continued, “They said something to the effect of ‘If this plan doesn’t work next year, we’ll revisit it in a year’… they told me to lean into the feeling of not being heard. We’re telling [the administration] what we need, and [they’re] just blatantly not listening. Not even ignoring it, but like doing the opposite. So that was really upsetting.”
In devising their protest, the house presidents looked back at previous mass protest movements at Smith, especially referencing Collective Care @ Smith, a website by Charlie Diaz ’22, in their discussion. In looking at these past protests, the HPs felt that lists of demands were sometimes brushed off by the administration, and they wanted to be sure that their demands would be taken seriously. The HPs hoped that by involving the Board of Trustees, as well as resigning, more effective action might be taken.
The 24 resigning house presidents, more than half of all HPs, are not stepping down totally from their positions. Rather, they are resigning from the House President Association. In doing so, they are cutting ties with the administration in an attempt to force change. The HPs will still be able to govern, support their houses and plan events. They can still access the house credit cards provided through the Office of Student Engagement to use for events, and outgoing presidents will meet with incoming ones to create a smooth transition.
“Realistically, our work for the semester was done. That’s why I felt alright resigning. And then I was like, ‘I’m not going to go out quietly,’” said Pfaff, Gillett House President, who resigned as HPA chair. Speaking of the support the HPs have received from the Smith community, she said, “People on campus have been saying that it’s about time that someone did something.”
In the last year, both the SGA president and the HPA chair have resigned, indicative of the burden placed on these student leaders. In developing their demands, the HPs wanted to improve conditions for themselves, and all other student leaders, in order to reduce the stress of their jobs.
The presidents demanded that the college provide increased compensation for HPs, who they estimate work over 10 hours a week, an extent that makes working paying jobs difficult. Because of this lack of compensation, the HPA is “overwhelmingly middle/upper class and white,” another concern raised by the presidents.
Many House Community Advisors (HCAs) also sent in letters of support for the house presidents’ protest. While it can be more difficult for HCAs to stop their work to protest the administration, as they will lose income, many house presidents hope this demonstration will increase support for student leaders overall, not just HPs.
“I just want them to realize how much they’ve been taking us for granted,” said Comeau. “Their treatment of us cannot continue like this, and if it does, they won’t have any student leaders left.”
I just read the list of demands and I’m really glad to see that they remembered to include Adas!