"Personal relationships amongst members within the two organizations have definitely helped make discussion easier for everyone," she says. "It helps to deal with political issues in a friendly medium."

"What I did take out most of [the Jeffries] experience is personal relationship is the only way to achieve proper communication. I felt part of the miscommunication was because communication was only occurring between very top leaders, very little between members," he says. "It was itself a root cause of that event."

Many students of both groups also laud the Minority Student Alliance (MSA)'s part in improving relations between BSA and Hillel.

"Through [the MSA], there's been more opportunities to communicate and work together on projects," Loeffler says. "The MSA is a third party [through which] the two groups can get together and work, and not feel that they're coming together head-to-head."

BSA and Hillel have remained in constant contact through the liaisons in the MSA, which has representatives from all the major student ethnic groups, leaders say.

The Jeffries Legacy

One reason for the heightened effort at dialogue between both members and leaders, students say, may be the memory of 1992 and its effects.

"Learning from the [Jeffries] experience, I wanted to emphasize need for dialogue as much as possible after the incident," Kaunfer says. "Kristen believed the same thing, we had the same goal."

Pine, who co-organized the discussion between BSA and Hillel that took place after the Martin speech, says he learned from the heated Freshman Black Table dialogue in 1992.

Instead of having a general meeting. Pine and co-organizer Kecia N. Boulware '97 broke the group into three smaller ones, each moderated by a representative from BSA and a representative from Hillel. Each group was given questions in advance to talk about.

Pine says the atmosphere of the discussion was more positive than what he saw during the FBT meeting.

"Each of the three pairs of moderators of BSA and Hillel were friends before the event. I don't think that would have existed beforehand," Pine says.

Despite the promising words of their leaders, misgivings still exist about the relationship between the BSA and Hillel.

"Honestly, there's not too much of a dialogue unless there's some sort of controversy," Brown says. "We don't do too much together unless there's some sort of crisis."

In spite of this, cooperation between the groups seems to be growing. Hillel and BSA are planning a joint social action project, next semester, Loeffler says.

Leaders of both groups hope relations will continue to improve.

"There are still many issues where we don't see eye-to-eye, but that's the point of discussion," Pine says.

"I feel confident that those that come, these people will understand the value of dialogue and communication," he added.

Says Brown, "there's not a lot of full-scale contact between BSA and Hillel. We're going to try to work, maybe stay in contact, possibly do something together more than just discussing possible disagreements.