With the new year in full swing, both Deerfield’s Student Council and Student Planning Committee are hard at work.
Though the two groups are sometimes confused, the purpose and duties of each group are distinct. Deerfield’s Student Council serves as a connection between the students and the administration through a group of grade representatives, day student representatives, the school president, and the council chair. The council is responsible for advocating for school policy and supporting campus initiatives. Deerfield’s Student Planning Committee is in charge of all of Deerfield’s event planning. They organize weekend activities and campus events, working with the Student Life Office to keep students busy every weekend.
With Student Council Chair Sophie Opler ’19 helping to coordinate each initiative, Student Council representatives constantly work on a variety of different campus-wide projects, each affecting different aspects of Deerfield life.
As a long-term project for the class of 2019, Caroline Carpenter ’19 is focused on resurrecting DANoteworthy, a student run platform that allows students to publicly share their writing, music, videos, or other creative works.
Protik Nandy ‘19 stated that he is working on an open dorm structure. Brigid Stoll ‘19 is working on finding a graduation speaker and pen pals for foreign languages classes.
Sim Bethel ‘20 is interested in bringing a barber to campus for his classmates. Christina Halloran ‘20 is working on getting smoothie bowls in the Greer Café, and Tim O’Brien ‘20 is evaluating the possibility of vending machines in John Williams. Whitney Vogt ‘20 is exploring the possibility of getting coat hooks in the gym.
Chijoke Achebe ‘21 was trying to develop a DAinfo app but reported, “The DAinfo app has been stalled because of software problems.” However, Achebe said, “I already started to get to work on the some of the ideas that I’ve had and ideas that my classmates have had,” including a potential Shipping and Receiving App.
Willy Conzelman ‘21 is looking into a call ahead system at the Greer.
Day Student Representatives, Mina Liang ‘19 and Seth Blain ‘20, have already completed a day student cookout, and Blain is looking ahead to a potential Day Student Parent Network and Clothing Swap.
Meanwhile, the Student Planning Committee is also hard at work.
“This time of year is always so crazy for SPC,” said SPC Senior Representative Bailey Cheetham ’19.
The SPC was occupied by the Halloween season for most of October, then they manage a range of annual Choate Week activities.
These plans include Deerfield’s annual banner painting this past Friday night, as well as a pep rally this week. The week concludes with a dance following Choate Day.
They also helped to plan the Original Deerfield Academy Concert, or ODAC for short, which Smith ‘19 said, “We haven’t done for the past few years, but it’s basically like Fall KFC, but with all original music that students have composed.”
SPC also organized a commute to the interscholastic dance hosted by Choate as well as Stargazing and Smores outside of the Greer within these next weeks. They are also already beginning to plan for Deerfield’s annual Semi-Formal, hosted in early December, as well as the annual Koch Friday Concert, which is in February.
For the long term, the SPC wants clubs to get involved in campus plans and eventually host events, funded by the SPC, as well as to take advantage of the new athletic space to host dances and activities.
Both councils encourage all members of the community to express their ideas to representatives. Smith ‘19 said, “We are trying to get as many people involved in student life as possible.”
Achebe added, “If people have ideas, that should reach out to any one of us because some of the smaller things that you don’t think can get done are some of the things we can accomplish.”