Addendum to the Charge from the Lawrence University Board of Trustees to the Task Force on Student Residential Life

January 21, 2000

The Board of Trustees wishes to express its appreciation for the diligent work of the Task Force on Student Residential Life and the good progress made to date in responding to the initial charge from this Board. Included in the Trustees' interest in student residential life is the commitment to provide students with rewarding, enjoyable, and attractive social opportunities, whether these be small or large parties or other campus events and programs.

The Board has reviewed and accepts the Task Force's interim report and provides this addendum to the charge as follows:

The Board endorses the statement of principles of residential life.

The Board endorses the following working principles on equity:

Lawrence students may freely associate and form student groups and organizations of their own choosing (including Greek-letter social organizations).
The allocation of college-owned housing should be based on clear and equitable rules.
No student group or organization should have a permanent claim to occupancy in any unit of college-owned housing. Existing claims should be resolved equitably.
The Board empowers the Task Force to acquire any information from outside sources necessary to help determine improvements to food services.

The Board further acknowledges that the several aspects of the review being conducted by the Task Force are interrelated and that new initiatives or modifications of current practice in one area will affect others. In that light, and in providing the foregoing statement in this addendum to help guide the Task Force's continuing work, the Board recognizes that any changes that will emanate from the Task Force's final recommendations, to the extent approved by the Board, will be effected over time.

While the Board recognized at the outset that the outcomes of the Task Force's work would call for investments of various (though now unspecified) sorts, it at the same time now encourages the Task Force to undertake its further work with the understanding that proposed changes accepted by the Board, particularly relating to the assignment of residential spaces, will not be implemented until the appropriate alternative arrangements have been identified and, to at least a degree, implemented. Such alternative arrangements may involve new spaces for student organizations and/or new residential units or reconfigurations of existing ones. Included in the foregoing are the identification and creation of social spaces for the campus, whether in a new or renovated student union or elsewhere. In short, the Board anticipates that there will be an appropriate period of transition involved in responding to the possible outcomes recommended by the Task Force. Accordingly, it charges the Task Force to develop a detailed plan for residential life and a timetable for its implementation. This plan will respond to student needs and interests to make Lawrence a stimulating and spirited campus home for current and prospective students.