“I’m exasperated with this unacceptably long delay”: SCOGL Report Now Six Weeks Overdue

Posted By Benjamin Pontz on Jun 14, 2019 | 1 comment

From the top right down, Former President Nick Arbaugh, SCOGL Co-Chair, Former Vice President Patrick Custer, and SCOGL Member Marisa Balanda (Photo Mary Frasier/The Gettysburgian)

By Benjamin Pontz, Editor-in-Chief

Everyone involved seems to agree that the Student Senate Committee on Greek Life’s report is not done and that the process has taken longer than expected. What is less clear, though, is what is taking so long, what the current status of the report is, and when it will be released.

Nine days ago, on June 5, The Gettysburgian contacted committee co-chair Patrick Custer ’19 to ask why the report was nearly five weeks overdue and did not receive a direct answer. Then, on Thursday evening, The Gettysburgian contacted Custer again, and he said the report would be released in the fall. A few hours later, however, after it was clear The Gettysburgian intended to publish a story on the matter, the tune changed as members of the committee began to signal that the report would be finished within the next week.

Committee member Giacomo Coppola ’22, who several sources familiar with the committee’s deliberations say has emerged as the one who will take the lead in writing the remainder of the report, said in an email shortly after midnight that the committee plans to finalize the report by the end of next week, while committee co-chair Timothy Wilson ’21 told The Gettysburgian Friday morning that “[m]ost of the report has been written” and that “[t]he report is almost finished.”

It’s been more than a month, however, since any writing of the report has actually occurred, committee member Marisa Balanda ’21 said, and, privately, many of those familiar with the process say significant work remains to be done.

New Student Senate President Patrick McKenna ’20 said he expects to receive the report by the end of next week and release it to campus soon thereafter.

The Committee’s Formation and Composition

At the Oct. 30, 2018, meeting of the Gettysburg College Student Senate, then-President Nick Arbaugh ’20 announced the formation of a Student Senate Committee on Greek Life (SCOGL). Arbaugh charged the committee to “study the social environment and interactions between both constituent populations of the campus and divine ways with which to better the Gettysburg College community as a whole.”

Custer, who was Student Senate’s Vice President for the past academic year, served as the committee’s Greek-affiliated co-chair for the entirety of its duration. Randy Feeley ’21 initially served as the unaffiliated co-chair but resigned during the spring semester citing disagreements with the committee’s direction, questions about its aptitude, and a desire to focus energy on other pursuits. Since then, Wilson has been the unaffiliated co-chair.

Custer said that the committee finished its interviews with students on campus during the first week of April, but that other end-of-semester obligations prevented the panel from writing the report itself.

“I think the information we gather[ed] is valuable, we just didn’t give ourselves the necessary time on the back end,” he said. “We probably should have dedicated an entire year to this with interviews in the fall and then writing, debating and refining in the spring.”

Custer said that Feeley’s departure as co-chair, which occurred around the time the committee finished interviews, was a “bit of a distraction, but I don’t think it was a major hindrance.”

Balanda concurred that the scope of the task made it challenging to complete in a single semester.

“Producing a report addressing the state of Greek and non-Greek relations at Gettysburg is an enormous undertaking, especially for one semester,” she said Tuesday morning. “The report our committee has compiled thus far is not at a state that we are comfortable sharing with the entire campus.”

Moving Forward

For his part, Arbaugh, who set the deadline to be two weeks before the end of finals so there would be time to review the report during the spring semester, called the delays exasperating and unacceptable.

“I’ve tried to take a very hands off approach to SCOGL because I want this report to reflect the opinion of a representative group of people. My only influence throughout has been to push the committee to release the report before the end of the school year. Obviously that hasn’t happened, and that’s quite unfortunate,” he said. “But what can I say? I’m exasperated with this unacceptably long delay and I’ve made that clear to the committee. This is important work, and at the end of the day it needs to be done.”

Getz concurred that the process took too long, but he expressed excitement about the prospect of the report’s forthcoming release.

“I am disappointed in how long it has taken for the report to be submitted to Senate Exec,” he said. “I am, however, excited to hear about how next semester’s campus community utilizes the findings in order to improve the campus climate.”

McKenna said he was “disappointed by the efforts of previous leaders of the committee to not conform to the original timeline,” but he pledged to work towards implementing the committee’s recommendations in the fall.

Whether that will take the form of reconstituting the ad hoc Senate Committee on Greek Life is an open question, he said.

For his part, Wilson believes that the committee should continue to exist moving forward.

“I do think that the conversations had with members of the campus community have been productive,” he said. “Different voices were able to be heard and I want more voices to be represented.”

Gauri Mangala contributed to this report.