On September 26, 2005, Choate Rosemary Hall sat down for its first-ever “community-lunch.” Dean of Students John Ford ushered in a first corps of waiters, who arrived for training on how to set a table, clear a table and carry out community-lunch Procedures. Since then, the chief sense of community these lunches have produced is a sense of community anger.
As the end of our tenure as stewards of The Choate News approached, we began to reflect on matters that have affected students most directly during our Choate careers. For almost a year and a half, students have griped about the community-lunch policy. We decided to take action. On February 12th, 2007 The News undertook a referendum on community-lunches and posed the following question to students and faculty “Do you favor the continuation of sit-down lunches in which the school sits together for one period on Tuesdays and Thursdays?” The options for response on the ballot were “Yes,” “No,” and “Yes, but they should be modified.” After three days of polling, the community’s voice was no longer muffled. The results were resoundingly in favor of abolishing this wasteful, time-consuming idea. We convey these numbers to the administration in hopes that the impact of such overwhelming sentiment will bring about a change in policy. The administration, however, apparently has no intention to make any “major modifications” to the program.
Said Dean of Students John Ford on Sunday, February 18th before the results of the referendum were known to the school, “I’m speaking for Mr. Shanahan when I say that we are not interested in changing the frequency of these lunches.”
The question is “Why?” The administration’s general goal is to simultaneously protect the best interest of the students and the institution. The school’s policies on drug use and co-ed visiting accomplish this. Sit-down lunches, which have been referred to by some as “Shanahan’s Folly,” do not accomplish either of these goals. The idea of sit-down lunches might enjoy greater support if the community had been more involved in the planning. One student wrote on his ballot, “Sit-down lunches compromise the character of the Choate community.” Mr. Ford, however, feels that sit-down Lunches are good for the school.
“Of course most people, when given the choice of sitting with whomever they want, and eating whenever they want and whatever they want will choose that over sitting with whom we tell them to, when we tell them to and what we tell them to,” said Ford. “But that doesn’t mean it’s not good for you…Mr. Shanahan wants this to be integral.”
Community-lunches do not encourage community, however.
A community is a group of people who, through their common geographical location, values, or affinities, are drawn together. But the word community, as we know it, means much more than that.
Rather, this attempt to guide us into greater connectedness has felt instead like an artificial ritual, one intended to make us--in cookie cutter fashion--more like places we are not.
By sucking up more of students’ free time and denying them lunchtime with their friends, sit-down lunches only breed ill feelings, discouraging the very enthusiasm and cooperation necessary for the community-lunch experiment to be a success.
One might wonder why the administration was concerned about Choate’s amount of community spirit in the first place. Kids here make connections all the time—through classes, extracurricular activities, athletics, and life in the dorms. The sense of community here is organic. The notion that the administration could effectively force students to relate with each other is, frankly, absurd. If students are going to make friends with each other, it will happen naturally. Forcing students into artificial—and extremely awkward—social situations will not accomplish anything.
Out of the 485 individuals who voted in this referendum, 78 of them think community-lunches are a good idea but need to be modified. The majority of these suggestions were to cut back the lunches to once a week. The News opposes the policy of sit-down lunch. We urge the administration to heed the call of the community and either end this misguided policy or be open to modifying it significantly. Turning a deaf ear to the community’s voice is a demonstration of an abuse of leadership. Listening and being able to modify one’s perception, on the other hand, shows strong and effective leadership.
