Hearing Student Voices at Open StuCo

          This past Tuesday, September 26, Student Council (StuCo) led their first Open StuCo meeting to hear from the student body about pressing issues and relevant topics at the Lawrenceville School. Student Council President Bryce Langdon ’24, along with the other representatives of Stu- Co, facilitated the discussion between the students in attendance and prompted them with questions.

          Langdon explained that this meeting was “designed with the intention to give students an opportunity to talk about whatever is on their mind.” Students who came to the meeting were welcome to share any opinions, ideas, and feedback regarding life at Lawrenceville. “The more student voices that are heard and amplified, the better of a job StuCo is doing,” Langdon remarked. His goal for the meeting was to provide “a chance for the Student Council and administrators to hear what’s at the forefront of students’ minds at Lawrenceville.”

          By collaborating with Wellness Representative Cassie Dillard ’24 and Dean of Campus Wellbeing Rae Chresfield, Langdon came to the conclusion that “this meeting would serve as a trial run to see how people felt about ‘town hall’ types of meetings.” Open StuCo meetings were an important aspect of Langdon’s presidential platform, and he hopes for StuCo to plan more of these events to help maintain transparency between the student body and StuCo.

          After hearing different students speak up about important issues on campus, Langdon explained that the Student Council will need “to go back to the drawing board and evaluate what [they] can do as students to meet the needs of the student-body, [anticipating] that the adults in the room [would] do the same.”

          Shailen Zimmerman ’25, who attended the meeting, noted that “the meeting primarily highlighted some of the imbalances between the boys’ and girls’ culture and lifestyle here at Lawrenceville.” However, Zimmerman felt that the meeting would have “gone a bit better if there was more structure to it.” Though StuCo intended for the meeting to be loosely organized, he found it “hard for everybody to pay attention” at some points because of this lack of structure.

          Eloise Galante ’25, another attendee, emphasized that the meeting was a “great way for the students to communicate directly with StuCo.” “It can sometimes be difficult to communicate with the [student leaders] at Lawrenceville, but this was a great way to do so,” she added. In the future, Langdon hopes to hold more Open StuCo meetings in order to give students more opportunities to express their viewpoints while also being transparent about the initiatives StuCo and the Administration are working on.