The Student Union has formed a Social Life Committee, aiming to improve student social life on campus, according to a Feb. 8 press release from the Student Union Executive Board. The press release stated that the committee "will consolidate resources and communications, share ideas, and may provide financial support to plan and improve parties/events." According to the press release, the committee is comprised of Student Union President and committee chair Daniel Acheampong '11; Director of Student Activities Stephanie Grimes, who helped Acheampong form the committee; Student Union Treasurer Akash Vadalia '12; Union Director of Community Advocacy Sarah Geller '13; Kathy Lawrence of the office of the President; Student Events director Lauren Brodsky '11 and other unnamed representatives from Student Events; Associate Director of Student Activities Nicole Chabot-Wieferich; Director of the Intercultural Center Monique Gnanaratnam; in addition to leaders of clubs with large event budgets. These leaders include Can Nahum '12 of the International Club, Mary Dunn '12 of Triskelion and Michael Zonenashvili '13 of the Punk, Rock n' Roll Club.

The Brandeis Emergency Medical Corps also agreed to provide its input to the committee since it "plays an important role in students' health and social life," wrote Acheampong said in an e-mail to the Justice.

"[The groups] all play a different role on campus," said Acheampong in a phone interview with the Justice. "I wanted to bring them all together."

Acheampong said he developed the idea of forming a committee focused on social life after the weekend of Oct. 23, when two students were arrested and several students were hospitalized.

He said he had brought up and discussed the proposal of a committee with the Board of Trustees and with Grimes before discussing it with different members of the committee.

In a phone interview with the Justice, Undergraduate Student Representative to Board of Trustees Heddy Ben-Atar '11 said that the Board of Trustees supports the Social Life Committee.

"[Daniel and I] brought [the idea] up to [the Board of Trustees] in a meeting in October and it's something that concerns them ... and it's something that they want to address and they want our input on it," said Ben-Atar, who also helped form the committee.

Acheampong said that he had personally reached out to these individuals and organizations about forming the committee.

He does not plan to add new members in the near future to ensure that the committee would not be too large and slow down discussion and progress.

As for appointing new members in the future when current ones graduate, Acheampong said that he would still like to keep the committee small and focused but said that new members of represented clubs would be trained to be on the committee in order to ensure a high level of commitment.

Acheampong said that, despite his desire to keep the committee small, the committee welcomes ideas from other students and clubs on campus.

The committee had its inaugural meeting Feb. 8.

According to Acheampong, one issue discussed at the meeting was the committee's role in looking at large organized events on campus as well as more casual on-campus gatherings and parties.

Ben-Atar said that the committee will look at past events on campus and analyze what has been successful and what has not and then decide how to help structure future events.

However, Ben-Atar said that the goal of the committee is not to plan its own events but provide input and resources for future events.

In an e-mail to the Justice, Grimes wrote that the committee "will assess what aspects of social life are most lacking for current Brandeis students" and "hopefully can gain insight on what elements are currently lacking and evaluate what is successful now."

"I don't see [campus] social life as something lacking," said Nahum in an interview with the Justice. "But there is room for improvement."

Acheampong stated that there will be another meeting in the near future to continue discussion on ways to improve on-campus social life.

Nahum announced that there would be an event on March 5 that the committee is working on and said to "look for flyers."

Acheampong said that the SLC will be a permanent committee at the University.

"This is not a committee that is going to go away," said Acheampong.

"This is a committee that's going to be there, that's going to really work hard with students, work with administrators, making sure we are providing excellent resources for our students."


-Fiona Lockyer contributed reporting.