Amanda Crouse
News Editor
Attendance was high at Scot Council’s weekly General Assembly (GA) meeting on Monday, Oct. 26, as students gathered in the Alley to discuss the previous week’s protest and board of trustees meeting.
After representatives from Scot Council’s ad hoc committees shared updates, TyLynn Gault ’27, Scot Council president, spoke about her experience at the Oct. 23 Mission and Outcomes meeting and subsequent student protest.
At the end of the Oct. 23 Mission and Outcomes meeting, the board stated that they did not plan to return to campus in the spring 2027 semester. Gault described the move as “a slap in the face and a disregard for all the work that we have been doing.”
Gault continued by expressing pride in the student body for its high attendance at the protest, and thanked members of Scot Council who spoke in a private meeting with Mark Goodman, chair of the board of trustees. After the private meeting, Goodman sent Scot Council an email response, which Gault read aloud to GA attendees.
“With respect to your request to immediately discontinue our engagement with Huron Consulting, I want to be clear that the board will not be terminating this engagement,” Goodman wrote.
Regarding student protesters’ other grievances related to program funding, admission and retention of students of color, faculty health insurance, international student support, and dining hall and library hours of operation, Goodman wrote, “While the board maintains oversight of the institution’s overall direction and performance, these operational matters appropriately fall within the administration’s responsibilities.”
Scot Council plans to meet with Goodman when he returns to campus on Monday, Nov. 9. Gault emphasized that the goal of the meeting is not to “just list a whole bunch of things that are wrong. We want to go based off of what we’re demanding, what has already been done, what work can still be done, and what we need to tell them; make sure we tell them everything.”
The last 20 minutes of the meeting were allotted to open discussion. Student attendees with questions or comments were each given two to three minutes to address the room.
One student speaker urged attendees to consider faculty and staff when deliberating on administrative demands. “I think it’s really important that we … talk about, like, staff and faculty inclusion and how we’re going to coalition-build with them before we push for anything, really,” the student said. They asked what Scot Council would like students to do in response to the recent administrative changes.
“The very first step, which needs to happen, is to build a cohesive front of students,” said Ty Reynolds ’27, Scot Council vice president. He discouraged students from disrupting admissions events, arguing that such behaviors are counterintuitive to the interests of the campus community. “The most fundamental thing to Wooster right now is enrollment. And so, if you are trying to tell students not to come here … that is a self-defeating, contradictory motive,” Reynolds said.
Braden Shildmyer, class of 2028 representative, said he spoke briefly with some board of trustees members after the protest and was told the best course of action would be to offer a compromise to the board. In the case of the College’s partnership with Huron Consulting Group, a compromise could mean students, faculty and staff are given access to information from the group’s analysis and are permitted to provide feedback.
Claire Allison McGuire ’27, Scot Council chief of staff, agreed with Shildmyer’s statements, adding that student involvement in the consultation process could be structured like Scot Council’s ad hoc committees, each focusing on a different area of campus policy.
During the final few minutes of the meeting, Gault asked students to be mindful of the sources they use for campus information. “Please, please, please, please do not share information that is not sent specifically from a trusted source,” Gault said. “Because there’s so much misinformation on this campus and we don’t want to become an untrustworthy entity at Scot Council when the information isn’t even coming from Scot Council.”
In closing, Gault encouraged students to support one another and to take advantage of opportunities to enjoy themselves amid an otherwise tense climate.
