Andrew Happy On Transparency, Engagement, and Challenging Admin
During the Election Assembly on December 1, current Student Body President candidate Andrew Happy ‘27 encapsulated a number of ambitious goals—increasing transparency within Senate, challenging administration, and improving student engagement—with a simple message: “ensuring student voices are heard.” Afterwards, the Quest reached out to Happy for further elaboration on his platform, particularly on those three primary goals, as well as clarification on the function of the Residential College Implementation Committee, which is still not clear to many—if not most—students at Reed.
Despite lots of discussion within Senate about the Residential College Implementation Committee, evidenced by its repeated mentions within Senate Public, much of the student body is ultimately unaware of what the committee is or how it intends to function. A residential college is typically defined as a division of a university, effectively a college within a college, intended to foster community and develop closer connections which are otherwise typically not available at large schools. Many questions naturally arise when applying this model to Reed, which is already a small, community-focused college in its own right.
With this in mind, Happy stated that “even within the committee, we’re working it out as we go” regarding the definition and implementation of a residential college model at Reed. “From my understanding,” Happy stated, “[the committee] was convened by Karnell [McConnell-Black] to examine ways we can restructure the college to help improve retention rate,” referring to the Vice President of Student Life. Happy explained that the committee was tasked with “trying to very broadly adapt something to fit Reed.” Most of the work done by the committee so far has been “looking at literature and identifying frameworks of collegiate programming that we can incorporate” as a guideline for implementation. Happy stated that, ultimately, the committee’s goal is to set up scaffolding of what they want to see at Reed before any changes are made, which he estimates will happen in “two or so years.”
Happy noted that, in the future, “an entirely new office and position” will be created to direct the implementation of a residential college system. He elaborated that another duty of the Residential College Implementation Committee is to determine what division that office would fall under, and what staffing it would require. In determining staffing requirements, the committee is required to ask what the hours for such a position would look like, and what positions it would require. Particularly, Happy pointed out the possibility that the office may create opportunities for student workers, who could “help out in the real administrative tasks that the position would require.”
During the Election Assembly, Happy stated that the Residential College Implementation Committee would seek to “drastically redesign support measures” for students. He elaborated later that “the main thing we’re looking towards is specific programming like career advising, academic advising, and office hours.” He shared that he hopes to “bring that programming to residence halls” in order to help more students access it, noting that office hours and other resources are currently “very underutilized,” while also noting that one of the “main reasons” that students leave Reed is that they “are not feeling supported in those ways.” In light of this, Happy feels that Senate needs to make a change and he thinks “meeting students where they’re at” is the best way to change that narrative. Furthermore, Happy shared that he hopes these programs would allow more student engagement across the board, stating that Senate has “had talks about having the Care Team come have office hours in residence halls too.” They intend to make resources easier to utilize for students by making them more directly accessible.
Happy admitted that student engagement “won’t be solved by what one committee comes up with,” but he hopes that the work of the Residential College Implementation Committee can “kickstart that process” and provide a method to begin to improve engagement and accessibility at Reed. He stated that “whether it’s mental health, career advising, academic support… there’s no harm in making those resources more readily available to students.”
The conversation then shifted to a discussion on admin at Reed, centered around Happy’s statement during the election assembly that he wants to “pressure admin to ensure student voices are heard” in the wake of a push to exclude Senate and the greater student body from being able to express their opinion on decisions. Happy stated that he feels that some of the ways admin keeps Senate out of discussions are “really shady,” highlighting that admin intentionally schedules meetings while Senators on the relevant committees have class or other obligations so that they “physically cannot attend” the meetings. He shared that he hopes to create a system where other senators can fill in for their peers and be updated on the discussion to ensure that Senate can at least have someone present.
Happy highlighted the PCCC’s graffiti ban as an instance where Senate received lots of criticism, posed in the form of a question: “why didn’t you advocate against it?” Happy shared that Senate “didn’t actively have a person in the room when that decision was made,” something he found particularly frustrating. Happy shared that he felt it would be important to create a way to transparently identify when Senate is not present in a discussion so that they could more effectively compile students’ thoughts to send as a report to admin. To Happy, pestering admin by compiling those thoughts and forwarding them by stating: “we weren’t at the meeting, and we feel it’s unfair that our thoughts were not presented. Here are the thoughts we’ve collected from students, and we share this sentiment” is a powerful tactic that identifies exactly why admin’s choice to exclude student voices is an issue.
Happy also stated that, even when Senate is present within meetings, there is an expectation within some committees that they are “just there as a body” and aren’t actually supposed to share their perspective. “If we’re entitled to a seat, that means we’re also entitled to a voice,” he stated, sharing that those skewed expectations are especially present in committees with members of admin in “VP-level roles.” In order to combat this, Happy stated that he thinks Senate needs to “really demand those committee chairs” to “have time carved out in minutes” for Senators to properly share their thoughts. In particular, he noted that committees where students should be the most vocal, like the HUM 110 committee, are where Senate is being pushed out most, leading them to resort to looking towards other committees with similar purposes to “make inroads” to make the changes they want, albeit through a more drawn-out process.
To Happy, admin’s withdrawal from engagement with Senate and the greater student body has been a trend since the SJP protests of Spring 2024. Over time, Happy has perceived a growing void between admin and the student body. “The issue there is that they’re reducing the amount of interaction they’re having with students, and so their idea of student sentiment is very warped to a select few people,” Happy stated. He added onto that statement with a specific frustration, stating that even Senate struggles to get into contact with Karnell McConnell-Black. “He’s the VP for Student Life, who we’re supposed to have easy access to. I think that is a serious issue, and indicative that he is not receptive to hearing student voices,” continued Happy, who thought the matter was especially problematic considering that McConnell-Black “is often the first point of contact” for meaningful student-led change to occur at a systematic level at Reed.
In his election assembly remarks, Happy also stated a desire to “standardize who the Honor Principle applies to” in order to “enable accountability and give students more power.” He elaborated to the Quest that a “core part of what [the Honor Principle] is supposed to be” is how vague it is, which he feels helps respect people’s autonomy. Simultaneously, he noted that one of his “biggest frustrations” with the current Honor Principle is that “people, particularly staff, have this sentiment that it doesn’t apply to them as well.” Happy cited the motivation of the Reed Custodians’ Union, stating that “they were certainly being harmed by staff, but those staff members… said the Honor Principle does not apply to them.” Happy affirmed that he feels staff members are ultimately still part of the Reed community, and should therefore be held accountable by the Honor Principle, though he admitted that making admin aware of how the Honor Principle should apply to them is “an uphill battle.”
When it comes to holding admin accountable for distancing themselves from student voices, Happy noted that “the more engagement we can get, the more power we have” against admin, especially highlighting the value of written engagement. Happy stated that, in his experience, faculty are more inclined to incorporate change when it is backed up by data. To him, it proves that “it’s not just the word of my mouth and my mouth alone—it’s something that’s actually backed up by a majority of students from a sample, like a Google Form,” which allows meaningful change shaped by student opinions to properly take hold. “When engagement is low, like this semester, it’s harder for us to do those things because we don’t have the data they like to see,” continued Happy. Ultimately, he lamented that those circumstances lead to frustration on all ends, because Senate is unable to ensure student voices are properly heard.
“People are very burnt out,” Happy admitted, citing the current sociopolitical climate of the country and greater world. “Reed academics are hard enough as it is, and that coupled with the existential dread of the world right now really limits people’s capacity to deal with anything else,” he stated. “I really sympathize with those sentiments,” he continued. In light of that, Happy reiterated the importance of “cultivating an environment that meets the moment that we’re in.” He shared that he felt Senate could benefit from “doing something to give back,” whether it be handing out cups of hot chocolate at engagement events or hosting stuffed animal lotteries to be “a small light” for students and establish Senate’s presence in a more meaningful and connected way. “It gives us room to be able to ask ‘how’s it going?,’” Happy elaborated. “That opens doors, and I think opening those doors is really important to also getting engagement going,” he shared.
Happy hopes that Senate will be able to “build better trust with the student body” and break down the perceived barriers between them by working on a smaller and more personal scale in addition to their usual work, “Sometimes I feel like people perceive me as a student representative before they perceive me as a person,” he stated. He also expressed a desire to run more engagement events for Senate to “have chats with students” to help build trust. “We often sympathize with the struggles you’re going through, because not only are we people, we’re actively students here too,” he said. Happy acknowledged that Senate needs to do a better job at building trust with the student body, and lamented the “perception that we’re operating behind-the-scenes.” “That’s something I’d really like to change,” affirmed Happy.
Happy added that he believes increased student engagement is the most effective way to reach admin and change the way dialogue is formed at Reed. He pointed to the success of URCHA and the Custodians’ Union, both of which were backed by significant student support, noting that “having enough people to mass spam emails to Audrey [Bilger] certainly had an impact on the negotiations.” Happy expanded on that point, believing that “if we can cultivate that kind of engagement… in regards to any policy at Reed that will affect everyone… it gives weight to our demands that are increasingly hard for [admin] to ignore,” once more stressing the vital importance of student engagement with Senate. Furthermore, Happy continued to share concrete methods to improve engagement, expressing a desire to expand Senate’s social media presence and share zines or other graphic media at engagement events, which Happy wants to increase throughout the semester. His goal is to “hopefully reach and talk to more people. If we can tell them verbally what’s going on, they can also share that and it will trickle down.”
“The idealist in me wants to assume I’ll do a good job,” Happy stated, expressing hope for his term as President. “I think there’s some truth to modeling the time of school you’d like to be at, especially in leadership,” he continued. He expressed further hope for the future of student autonomy and engagement at Reed, stating that “if I can lay the groundwork… by modeling to the best of my abilities, then future student body presidents or Senates or just the community at large can carry that forward.”