add more details to all of this, and make sure to add a solutions portion based on the information you have. make the language very business-formal: Facts
At the 2023 Honors Academy Orientation, students were asked not to communicate with each other
on other platforms ”outside program parameters”1. In particular, Discord was mentioned both in this
statement and verbally as a platform that was not to be used between Honors Academy students.
2 Potential motivations
As news spread of this change among current EEP students, the initial reaction was one of surprise
and the most immediate follow-up question was ”Why?”
While it is not our responsibility to determine definitively why this happened, some have pointed
to incidents of inappropriate conduct during the 2020 Honors Academy. The authors have not heard
any other theories. The authors will discuss this decision from EEP administration under this limited
knowledge of what was in mind when this change was made.
3 Problems
3.1 Generally
According to the Honors Academy website, the room known colloquially as the EEP Kitchen is
open to Honors Academy students ”for EEP and Academy students to socialize and study.”2. Honors
Academy has, in the past, emphasized interaction between Honors Academy students and already
admitted EEP students. The 2022 Honors Academy for the first time included peer mentors, EEP
students who chose to step up working under CAS supported new Honors Academy students one-on-
one and in groups. Honors Academy 2021 and 2022 included live talks from volunteer current EEP
students to Honors Academy students, explaining topics like particular career paths and life in EEP.
These programs have continued in 2023. The peer mentors are now involved with every single student
and each student has at least 5 hours of interaction per week with the mentors. The talks from (among
other people) current EEPsters have returned, this time largely in person.
All of this goes to show that the past and current EEP administrations have made a point to connect
Honors Academy students with current EEPsters, even before their formal admission to the program.
EEPsters, especially since the pandemic, have communicated primarily via Discord, especially when
seeking interactions with the student body at large. It then makes little sense for an Honors Academy
to ban Discord de jure, only for these same students to likely re-congregate on Discord upon admission
to meet and interact with the rest of the EEP student body.
3.2 For EEPC
As of the creation of this document (16 June), the new EEPC administration for the 2023-2024
school year is but a week old. Provisional appointments are less than five days old, and tools critical
to the EEPC government’s operation (our files and Discord server for communication) are less than
twenty-four hours old.
EEPC has already begun to do its due diligence. The social committee has immediately begun
organizing and planning events over the summer, particularly during Honors Academy and with the full
intent to include Honors Academy students. Particular events held during the 2022 Honors Academy
will likely be held again, such as a board game night and a bowling night near the end of the academy.
But in order to implement these effectively, EEPC needs to collect input from potential attendees,
e.g. about convenient times and places and about interest in certain kinds of events. With few students
still on campus in-person during the summer, and because of the banning of Discord, there are no
vectors for EEPC to reach the Honors Academy students, save for the almost complete coincidence that
the Honors Academy peer mentor team is comprised of the incoming EEP secretary, tech committee
chair, and social committee chair. Even so, the mentors do not have chances to speak on behalf of
EEPC, since they are also obligated as mentors to run activities and conduct study sessions. When
1The authors do not have access to the slides from this day but have become aware of this language used.
2Honors Academy 2023 website, see section ”The Honors Academy Benefits”
2
mentors are not fulfilling these official capacities, the Honors Academy students are often at lunch, in
class, or elsewhere, generally completely dispersed.
There is only one vector through which EEPC can reach the Honors Academy students, and it
cannot even be labeled a viable one. We can attempt to post QR codes to Google Forms, for example,
to poll student interest. However, this is very impersonal and ineffective, even with current EEP
students. The social chair, as a mentor, has sought to gather general input on the nature of events
which Honors Academy students are interested in attending. However, such a informal face-to-face
survey, conducted during a free block of Honors Academy, only covered those who happened to be
present in the kitchen at the time, at most a third of the Honors Academy cohort. This is no way for
EEPC, a well-formed and competent university club, to poll among its potential members.
Again, because of the banning of Discord, there is no way to contact the Honors Academy students
online. EEPC does not have their emails, phone numbers, or anything of that sort. As mentioned
above, there is no way to exhaustively obtain this information for every Honors Academy student.
3.3 With the ideals of EEP
EEP is a university program. EEPC is a fully-fledged and legally separate university club. It serves
those who are much younger than normal and still expects its students to obey university standards.
Preventing one method of communication between Honors Academy students just means they will use
another. They still have their text messages, their pens, and their mouths. Banning one platform in
particular only moves the issue. If anything, it encourages bad actors to use their mouths instead,
perpetuating potential improper conduct with no paper trail. Compelling Honors Academy students
applying to a four-year university to not use a certain communication platform (or any other they
might use to circumvent the rules) is inconsistent with the ideal of independence they are promised in
university.
3.4 Conclusion
The banning of external communication platforms for Honors Academy students opens many prob-
lems and completely solves none of them. It simply moves and arguably worsens the problem of
inappropriate conduct by hiding it. This decision stonewalls EEPC’s highly important work in reach-
ing the Honors Academy students and suppresses the development of the maturity and professionalism
of Honors Academy students.
4 Solutions