Last week, we had an open discussion about the Rose Scholars program. Therefore, I would like to propose solutions to a couple of issues that came up in the discussion. Firstly, Dr. Hill mentioned that it would be ideal if more Rose House residents who were not necessarily in the Rose Scholars program came to events. One suggestion I have for achieving this is to not use asterisks to denote Rose Scholar events. I feel like they are liable to make some students feel like they are more exclusively focused on Rose Scholars and not Rose House residents in general. Because most of the weekly events are eligible Rose Scholar events already, I believe it would be better to simply denote which are not Rose Scholar events.

Another issue that came up was the social aspect of the program. Besides the initial ice breaker at the beginning of the year, I feel the scholars generally don’t really get to know each other too well. Not to mention, I do not believe ice breakers are that great to begin with. As most students are not enthusiastic about them, they simply go through the motions and forget most if not all of the dozen or so names they randomly pick up. Instead, I believe it would be better to perhaps have more game nights. I know there were at least a couple board game events this semester, which I was not able to make. But in general, I believe students are likely to get to know each other better when sitting at the same table playing a game for thirty minutes or so. Another option would be to have sports events. For instance, there could be casual basketball games at the Noyes Community Recreation Center. Then students who go would get some exercise as well!