Elizabethtown College has had one word on its mind this semester: transparency. The administration is trying to work on its policy which focuses heavily on students, parents, faculty and alumni knowing information as soon as possible. This has been evident through initiatives this year such as residential renewal and tuition transparency projects.

Vice President for Student Life Dr. Celestino Limas has a large focus on getting information to students as quickly as possible. He believes that since the students are living on-campus and are the most affected by these administrative decisions, “any time students and the institution are partners, that is the best way to go.”

Limas strongly believes in the power of communication, as it is the easiest way to establish a relationship. When he arrived at the College, he truly felt the importance of transparency among his colleagues and the students. He said he believes that students have been very direct and open about what they want from the administration since he has arrived at the College.

Because of this focus on and commitment to transparency, Limas has been trying to visit all of the residence halls to ask students for their opinions on potential ideas and to tell students about the residential renewal plans. He believes that communication with the students that will be most involved with these issues is imperative.

He has also attended all of the Student Senate meetings so far this year and met with most major groups on campus such as Residential Assistants and Community Fellows, Peer Mentors and Jaywalkers, giving them his personal cell phone number and insisting that they bring any problems to him.

Similarly, the Interim Vice President for Enrollment George Walter, whose job focuses on talking to prospective students and trying to get them interested in attending Etown, has believed that transparency is the way to get people to think twice about looking at other institutions, especially with the tuition transparency.

Walter said he sees the value in making sure that students and parents honestly know what will financially go into the student attending the College.

Like Limas, Walter has only been at the College for a short period of time, and he does not have many prior examples to go off of when it comes to how the College implemented transparency before he arrived. During his time here, Walter says that the way he treats his responsibilities is as if the students “are his bosses. With that, [the administration] needs to be as candid as they can be.”

Even when certain things cannot be revealed immediately, there is not a sense of trying to hide information but more of a sense in trying to go through all of the information so as to not convey anything prematurely or incorrectly. Walter believes that he has never seen any administrative member purposely mislead or lie about information that cannot be released.

Even with the microbial growth issue, Walter believes that the administration did a great job being candid and thorough with the problem, and he is “proud to be a part of that administrative team.” He and Limas both understand that one of the best, as Limas called it, “case studies,” of the administration inefficiently announcing a new change was with the tuition transparency announcement.

Walter believed that the announcement was not geared towards the crowd that was in the audience and that those who were in attendance did not immediately understand all of what was being said. He does not believe that the decision was communicated correctly, even though he believes it was the correct decision by the standards of admissions.

Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs Dr. Betty Rider also had some comments regarding the importance of transparency on-campus. She believes that although “there are times when [the administrators] are entrusted with confidential information,” it is “important that we are operating from a base of trust with one another.”

She hopes that students, faculty, and staff are able to notice and experience greater transparency on-campus. The creation of the Staff Council, which should be fully operational by the end of this year, will be another way in which the staff can communicate and be transparent with the campus community.