Last Wednesday, Bowdoin Student Government (BSG) held its third assembly meeting of the year in the Roux Center for the Environment. BSG discussed their main priorities for the year, which included building transparency and communication with the Bowdoin community, planning a Halloween event and discussing the tuition increase.

BSG addressed the recent large increase in tuition. Elliot Ewell ’27 spoke on the issue, discussing a plan to raise concerns with the Board of Trustees.

“There’s a Board of Trustees meeting next week where … Harper [Stevenson ’27] and I will be going…, and we’re given time to speak, and I would like to open something about tuition in a very respectful but still forceful way of being [like], ‘Hey, students are concerned about this,’” Ewell said.

Members agreed upon placing pressure on College administrators for more transparency on the spike this year, the highest it has been since the 1980s. Some members expressed desire for a breakdown of data to compare Bowdoin’s costs with that of peer institutions like Colby College, as well as an explanation as to which College services are causing the higher prices and whether they are entirely necessary.

Earlier in the meeting, Giovanna Parnoff ’28 pitched a reverse trick-or-treating event for Halloween. The proposal entailed BSG members going around and knocking on dorm rooms to offer Halloween candy.

“Halloween is such a fun time of year, and college kids don’t really get to trick-or-treat anymore,” Parnoff said.

During the discussion of Parnoff’s proposal, the issue of budgeting for an event that included outreach to both first years and upperclassmen was raised. The initial proposal requested $700, nearly ten percent of BSG’s yearly budget. The assembly eventually agreed on reducing the budget to $450, with additional costs covered by certain BSG leaders’ own discretionary funding.

BSG also debated other details of the proposal, such as selecting the optimal time where most students would be in their dorms and whether door knocking can be replaced with more effective means of distributing candy. Whittier Henry ’29, in favor of going door to door, emphasized the importance of personal interactions between BSG and the student body.

Concluding the discussion, BSG voted unanimously to go ahead with Parnoff’s amended proposal.

Finally, the meeting adjourned with promises of updates on the tuition situation. An appearance from Senior Vice President for Finance and Administration and Treasurer Matt Orlando to continue the conversation about tuition is scheduled for next week.

Whittier Henry ’29 is a member of the Bowdoin Orient.