The beginning of the school year is filled with many spirit activities including dress-up days, pep rallies, and football games. Student-led committees largely organize these activities; however, they require approval from the administration. The attitude around campus is largely negative regarding the approval process of spirit activities.
“I do feel like there’s been an increase of censorship this year from the administration,” Spirit Leader Anne Avery Lunsford said. “I’ve received multiple complaints from all of the students.”
Spirit-Leaders’ and student council’s job is to make spirit-related activities as enjoyable as possible for the student body to increase participation.
“I definitely have received a lot of complaints, especially towards the beginning of the year when we were still discussing themes,” Student Body President Caroline Lowery said, “but I feel like student council and the administration have really worked through it and we’ve come up with a compromise so all the students are much more happy.”
Some in the student body feel that the decision-making process limits student choice. While some believe it’s because of rigid administrative rules, Lowery thinks otherwise.
“I think student council could’ve done a better job communicating to administration and the other way, especially in the beginning of the year.” Lowery said. “It wasn’t really clear why things were getting banned, but I’ve worked with Rev. Annie to compile a list of themes we’re not going to do and we’ve made it a lot more obvious why we’re banning things including song lyrics.”
Admin’s job is to facilitate a fun and spirit-filled environment for student life while still putting certain restrictions in place to ensure school guidelines are met.
“I do think boundaries are helpful,” Reverend Annie Elliott said. “I don’t think rigid administrative censorship is necessary.”
The student body doesn’t seem to know why things are banned or if they are truly banned at all.
“There were some miscommunications this year about themes.” Elliott said. “I think there’s a perception that the decisions are more subjective than they are.”
The frustration among the student body seems to be rooted in miscommunication from all parties as opposed to an increase in administrative censorship.
“Admin and student council have a shared Google sheet of pre-approved themes and information now, to make the approval process go more quickly and smoothly in the future.” Elliott said. “I plan to talk about the policy at the next All-School because I’m not sure if students have seen it lately.”
Student council and administration are working to better communicate rules and the reasoning behind regulations to the student population with hopes of decreasing confusion and frustration. Even though there have been student complaints about theming and censorship, it doesn’t seem to be hurting the overall student enjoyment of spirit-related activities.
“I think this year we’ve had one of the largest student sections that I’ve ever been a part of, and it’s been by doing the themes, songs, and playlists that are approved.” Lowery said. “People might be complaining about the themes but I certainly don’t think it’s actually decreasing school spirit.”
