By MATT ROSELLI
Staff Writer
 

In the past year there has been considerable complaint on campus about the administration's practice of having policies to deal with student issues, but not making those policies public knowledge.

A committee has spent the past year examining oral policies in general, and the chalking policy in particular.

The new policy, sent out to students last week, limits chalking to the quad area of campus and requires organizations to get a blue-slip at the Student Activities Office or at the Security Office before chalking and to clean up the area after chalking with materials provided by the Physical Plant.

Coincidentally, the policy was violated before students even knew about it. On Friday afternoon, an athletic team chalked the space in front of Chase Hall, which is a prohibited area.

Even though this team may not have known about the new policy yet, they were nonetheless violating what Dean Reese calls an "unwritten policy" that has prohibited chalking for years.

"They thought it was O.K., but it... wasn't," said Reese. The team simply had to clean up the markings.

The Ad Hoc Committee, made up of students and administration, created this policy last year, taking into consideration freedom of expression as well as the interests of the people who are forced to view this expression.

The committee also consulted many other colleges inside and outside of NESCAC and found that most schools have a policy similar to the one just started at Bates.

This committee was formed last year partly because of an incident that occurred at the beginning of Coming Out Weekend '97. The Gay Lesbian-Bisexual Alliance chalked the quad late one night to kick off the weekend. Security saw the display, the Physical Plant was notified, and the display was removed before dawn.

It turned out the quad had been blue-slipped, but the slip had been lost somehow. Jason Goldman, co-coordinator of the GLBSTA, said "There was some confusion.... The quad was blue-slipped [but] it didn't go to all the places it needed to," such as security, the Physical Plant, or the Student Activities Office.

The bigger misunderstanding was that the blue-slip did not grant permission to chalk but rather to put up other forms of display. The "unwritten policy" against chalking still held. Who actually knew about this unspoken rule is questionable.

The deans and the Ad Hoc Committee have attempted to clarify this matter with the new written chalking policy. And even though this policy is slightly limiting as to where chalking can occur, it does give student organizations the right to get their message out provided that they are willing to cooperate.

Goldman says of the policy: "It is helpful insofar as it will prevent something like what happened last year."