Opinion: Alumni entitled to campus access
With total graduates nearing 2,000, it’s inevitable that more return to Westview each year to visit former teachers, catch up with former and current Wolverines, and share the burdens and joys of college.
We usually would feel honored by our alumni’s choice to visit us and welcome them back enthusiastically.
Unfortunately, Westview’s current visitor policy prevents alumni from visiting during school hours, unless they are scheduled as a guest speaker. Even then, alumni are prohibited from going around the school to visit other teachers. Principal Dawn Kastner said that the policy is based upon the Leadership Cadre’s complaint that it’s disruptive when alumni come knocking during the school day.
However, our alumni forged strong teacher-student relationships while at Westview, something to be encouraged and valued.
Teachers enjoy hearing from and seeing their former students. This stems partially from an interest in former students’ college exploits. But alumni also validate their teachers’ commitment and make tangible their sacrifices to educating our youth. This thereby boosts their morale, especially in the light of the fiscal challenges teachers currently face.
While the administration is definitely not adverse to these relationships, their current policy puts too many limitations on alumni wishing to stop by. Alumni justifiably expect to be able to obtain a visitor’s pass without having to call ahead or be a “guest speaker”.
Furthermore, the policy overlooks the fact that alumni contribute to the learning environment by sharing their college experience with their teachers, and by extension, with the class.
Students can’t connect to a teacher’s account as they can to a peer’s, partially because college has changed a lot since many of our teachers attended.
While it’s unreasonable to open the campus unconditionally, a middle ground can be established to prevent eager alumni from devising their own ways of sneaking around the system.
The policy currently closes off homeroom, Wolverine Time and lunch periods as visiting slots, but these are actually optimal times for alumni to simultaneously visit multiple teachers and not interfere with any lesson plans.
Some teachers have expressed some dissatisfaction with the restrictions on alumni, feeling that it is only an extra hassle, and are willing to draw up a list of alumni to be given unlimited access to the campus.
Our school stands to gain a fair bit from our alumni. Improvements can be made to the current visitor policy, to accommodate graduates and still be considerate of teachers—it’s a win-win situation for both sides.