Before last year, ‘Brown Bag Lunches,’ student-led discussions about world issues, were a regular occurrence. These hour-long discussions addressed topics such as campus sexual assault, the Syrian refugee crisis, and the shooting of Michael Brown.
However, in the last two years, 25-minute ‘Community Conversations,’ which have been led by SASAB’s Infusion team during break, have largely taken their place, covering events such as the presidential election or the pro-life speaker, Kim Daniels, who visited SR last year.
Mrs. Meg Frazier, head of the Upper School, said this shift is consistent with a larger administrative move to end lunch meetings to give students more free time. “It’s really more logistical than philosophical,” she said.
Dean of Students Ms. Stephany Fontanone said there was no change in policy but instead a structural change.
“People hear what they want to hear,” said Ms. Fontanone. “There was a miscommunication in how the communications trickled down to students. The philosophy around lunchtime meetings has changed, but the policy has not.”
“The teaching will now be happening flipped classroom style to allow more time to marinate and have richer discussion,” explained Ms. Fontanone.
Ms. Lauren Brownlee, director of social action, explained that two separate changes were made last year.
“SASAB’s “brown bag” offerings changed to cover only topics that the entire Upper School was learning about through Social Action or assembly,” she said. “At around the same time, we started offering “brown bags” during break in Good Hall to allow for more participants than a classroom could hold at lunch. The name was changed to reflect the move from lunch to break.”
Some students feel that there is a more substantial difference between these two types of discussions. Kathryn Paravano ’17, who has planned both types of discussions, said that in her experience, Community Conversations are “an emotional debrief” as opposed to a “half informational and half discussion” based meeting.
Students interested in hosting a discussion can plan the discussion with the SASAB Infusion Team, Ms. Fontanone or Mrs. Frazier.