SA discussions included the upcoming #MeToo Walk, wearing sports bras at the GAC, and DPS simulations of active shooters during the Senate’s meeting on Oct. 9.
The meeting started off with a presentation by Director of Campus Dining Services and Auxiliary Operations Cam Schauf.
He spoke about how the University of Rochester has partnered up with a new firm called Harvest Table to renovate the dining services.
“We’ve been putting […] a lot of emphasis on sustainable dining and local purchasing,” Schauf said.”Harvest Table is designed to do just the kinds of things that are important to us,” he added.
According to Schauf, the dining staff has doubled their customer service training, and have made goals to serve authentic, personalized, and collaboratively made meals. Additionally, the menus of campus dining halls are updated in real time on the URMobile app.
It’s On Us, a group aiming to end sexual misconduct at UR, is planning to host a Me Too Walk in the coming days in reaction to Brett Kavanaugh’s appointment. In addition, the organization is currently accepting applications for educators who will be trained to lead discussions on sexual misconduct.
Meanwhile, Student Life is working on getting more resources for Native American students in admissions. They are also working on acquiring closed captioning devices to allow deaf students and students with English as their second language to better enjoy campus events.
SA also discussed how many female students have complained about being kicked out of the Athletics Center for wearing sports bras. Other women were allegedly told that wearing a sports bra was a safety issue.
When Student Life researched the rules of the Athletics Center, to their understanding, some form of shirt is required at all times.
Still, SA President Beatriz Gil argued about the double standards of athletic clothing.
“A lot of guys wear t-shirts…they are basically so cut that you can see everything, but women were not able to wear crop tops,” Gil said.
Additionally, the executive branch met twice over Meliora Weekend with the Board of Trustees, who have elected Richard Handler as their new head. Handler is also in charge of the Handler Scholars, which awards scholarships to students in underrepresented groups.
Though UR is one of the leading research universities in the nation, the Board admitted that the university is not that well known outside of Monroe County, which is why they launched the Rochester Effect campaign. This campaign seeks to host panels in schools around the nation to advertise the school and improve UR’s national standing.
Finally, SA brought up a training exercise Public Safety did with the FBI four years ago.
During a simulation in the training, the officers pretended that an active shooter was present in the school, but in chasing the suspect into the tunnels, they got lost, and it ended up taking 15–20 minutes to apprehend the culprit. This is opposed to the average 4–5 minutes it takes a shooter to strike.
Due to this exercise, the school wants to revisit the possibility of having armed officers stationed on campus. Such officers would only be allowed to act in times of emergencies.
After the attempted sexual assault that took place in a practice annex at the Eastman campus, they are especially interested in the idea. However, the school wants student input before taking any action.
Correction (10/28/18): An earlier version of this article stated that DPS trained with the FBI last summer. This actually occurred four years ago.
