Uncertain Future for SB Info and MCs in Ongoing Negotiations with Administration

Since the September 26 announcement by Student Body President Andee Gude ‘26 that the Student Body Information (SB Info) newsletter would no longer be distributed to the student body by email, the status of SB Info has been uncertain. 

The original reason for the end of SB Info emails was their violation of Reed’s Mass Email Policy. Under this policy, all mass communication to the student body is required to undergo a moderation process and receive approval from Vice President for Student Life Karnell McConnell-Black. Since Gude’s initial email explaining the situation, SB Info has been published on a running Google Doc, which is accessible by Reed students but not affiliated with the college. This document has been updated every Wednesday and Sunday, in keeping with the newsletter’s original schedule.

Last month, a brief hope surfaced for the return of SB Info. On Sunday, October 6, Gude sent out an email in the typical SB Info format to the student body listserv, studentbody-newsletter@groups.reed.edu. “I <3 student autonomy” stated Gude in the email. However, no further SB Info communication was sent out by mass email in the weeks following and, as of November 6, that was the last SB Info email sent out.

At this time, members of Senate had been under the impression through communication with Associate Director of Computer User Services Ben Salzberg ‘94 that the original mass email distribution of SB Info did not go against the Mass Email Policy. Soon after, they were informed by Karnell McConnell-Black that the unmoderated distribution of SB Info by mass email was a violation of the policy. 

“[Salzberg] had informed us that we should just be able to send out the emails. We had thought that we were able to and then upon doing that, that’s when Karnell [McConnell-Black] and [Public] Affairs stepped in and shut that off and reinstated Karnell as an admin on the listserv,” explained Student Body Vice President Jefferson Ratliff ‘25. 

Since then, SB Info resumed publication on Google Docs, with its ultimate future status as yet undecided. The most recent update to the Doc as of November 6 dates from Sunday, November 3, announcing, “PSA: We’re in heat again… stand by.”

In the absence of SB info, only one Senate group has continued to publish emails to the student body listserv. The Appointments Committee (AppComm) has sent several emails throughout the past month with information about the recent Senate special election. While AppComm launched a newsletter in September specifically for job postings, their ongoing communications with the student body have been limited to announcements about the election.

“We’ve been having a lot of success and I think some of that was because of the newsletter,” said Appointments Committee Co-Chair Lindsay Worrell ‘25. “The fact that we aren’t able to send it out now is kind of frustrating.” 

AppComm’s election emails have been required to undergo moderation by McConnell-Black. The decision to push through these emails with moderation came from the necessity of sending out mass communication about elections, which would previously have been included in SB Info. “We couldn’t come up with a solution fast enough to do it without moderation,” stated Worrell.

According to Appointments Committee Co-Chair Bella Moore ‘26, the moderated AppComm emails are not a long-term solution. Moore noted the difficulty of waiting for approval with the time-sensitive nature of many student government processes. “It’s really frustrating because we don’t work 9-to-5s and the approvals come on a 9-to-5 schedule,” explained Moore. 

With the need for timely communication in view of the upcoming regular election, Senate has been looking for alternate methods to reach the student body. “We’re trying to find a long-term solution to be able to publish election-related information in the future especially because we have another election coming up at the end of the semester that includes our executive positions,” said Ratliff. 

In the past month, members of Senate have been in discussion with the Student Life Office to come to an agreement on the future distribution method for SB Info. President Gude announced at Senate Public on Monday, November 4, that Senate will be transitioning to use the Senate website to publish SB Info announcements alongside news for other committees within Senate, including AppComm and Treasury, which were included in the old SB Info emails.

Plans for this new form of SB Info include the ability for students to opt-in to email notifications about updates to the website, similar to how the newsletter was sent out in the past. “We’re trying to make [the website] very much mimic what would go out in the original email as well as restructuring our opt-in email to also have that information again,” said Ratliff.

While the plan to host SB Info on the Senate website is moving forward, the question of the Missed Connections (MCs) remains unanswered. SB Info has traditionally included the MCs, a document of assorted statements ranging from compliments to critiques compiled from submissions to a Google Form released in the same SB Info newsletter. These submissions were moderated, based on a set of guidelines to preserve anonymity and prevent hate speech, by a student MC editor, whose identity was unknown to the student body. 

Moore recounted how McConnell-Black and Dean of Students Chris Toutain informed Senate last semester that the MCs could not continue in their current form and that more moderation was required for the MCs. In response to these concerns, the Appointments Committee made several changes to the MC process over the summer before opening up MC Editor applications at the beginning of the semester.

One major change was that multiple MC Editors were hired, in contrast to previous years. “We made the decision to have multiple [MC Editors] so that the workload was manageable and they would have people to talk to, because the anonymity is something that we find important and they agreed with us on that,” explained Moore. In addition, AppComm and the newly hired MC Editors drafted a new set of guidelines for the MCs that would institute a strike policy to exclude people from participating in the MCs after multiple incidents of submitting unacceptable content. 

Despite these changes, Student Life has not approved the continuation of MCs. Moore related the lack of clarity in the discussions between AppComm and Student Life. “[McConnell-Black] was unaware that we made changes to [the MCs], despite us having conversations with him about making those changes. He also said he was unaware that the MCs weren’t even running,” said Moore.

The future of the MCs looks uncertain. Ratliff explained further, “The MCs remain a more up-in-the-air aspect of it because we would still be the main distributors of them and as of right now Student Life doesn’t believe that’s feasible.”

In the absence of the MCs, students have been looking for replacements. In particular, the anonymous forum app Fizz launched on October 22 and has gained some traction with students. Like the MCs, Fizz gives students a platform to share anonymous comments, but this alternative notably lacks the accountability and moderation that were central to the MCs. 

Ratliff noted that he and other Senators are creating a document recording concerning Fizz posts. He explained his intention to share this document with Student Life “to highlight that having these third-party sites isn’t better for students, even if the college isn’t liable.”

Concerns about student autonomy at Reed remain clear and present. Ratliff remarked on a growing sense that the administration is attempting to run Reed along the lines of other liberal arts colleges, even at the expense of Reed’s own unique values. “I think it’s a really needed time for students to express our own culture and vision of Reed because it’s a school that’s always filled a niche more than it’s been necessarily statistically aligned with other schools,” said Ratliff. 

As of November 6, Karnell McConnell-Black and Chris Toutain have not responded to the Quest’s request for comment.