By Julia Berkman
November 23
ResLife Demands update
VP for Student Life, Annie Gordon, spoke on a working document she and the RAs are putting together. The document details the current demands of the RAs and is available online.
“People are expecting riots, and I’m trying to shift the tone a little bit,” Gordon said.
According to Gordon,there’s a meeting coming up with Jones and Melinda (?) to speak about it.
“There is a sense of accountability, and that accountability can look a lot of different ways,” Gordon said. She decided to do an update in a few weeks.
Food and Housing
Christian Urcia (from Birnam Wood) is close to getting a food pantry open in Birnam Wood, but according to Gordon, they need funding. Gordon wants the AS to support the program. The AS University Housing Representation and Advocacy Committee (UHRAC) has budget money, but the structure of the committee is currently under construction.
The food pantry would be for all Western students, not just Birnam Wood residents. That raised the question of if UHRAC can be pulled from, because it’s a fund for on-campus students only.
“We always have to be the ones to find funding for things like this, when the university should be funding things like this,” Chhabra said.
Chhabra decided to set up a meeting with the Foundation Board because they do a lot of philanthropic work.
…But how does this affect me?
A food pantry on campus means that many Western students who don’t have a lot of money or access to food can now make wholesome healthy meals.
Smoke-Free Campus
Western students voted on this issue in 2014, so the board wasn’t sure whether or not they should implement a smoking ban based off that vote. The board was also not sure if they should vote before or after drafting a plan for its implementation.
If they decide to poll students on this issue again, it will take more time and probably wouldn’t be implemented until Fall of 2018.
Chhabra and Rutledge wanted to bring it to President Randhawa.
The main reason Gordon is heading the Smoke-Free campus initiative is to help students who have allergies or asthma.
“How it was explained to me from someone who has a physical reaction [to smoke], all it takes is a gust of wind,” Gordon said. No matter how far they put the smoking poles, Gordon worried that it wouldn’t be far enough.
Part of the board’s hesitation to implement a smoke-free campus has to do with alienating those students who do smoke.
“So far we’ve been looking at it as an accessibility issue. I certainly have been wrestling with the stance we take on nicotine and acknowledging that it isn’t easy to wake up and quit,” Gordon said.
Gordon also said it would be difficult to compromise. Students who smoke would have to do so off-campus.
The whole board agreed they want to move forward to the planning stages of a smoke-free campus based off the 2014 vote.
…But how will this affect me?
Well, if you’re a student who opposes smoking on campus, this is a win for you. If you’re a student who smokes, this may make your day a little harder. While the board is trying their best to accommodate everyone, smokers with no mind to quit, mobility issues or no time may have trouble once this initiative takes root.
AS Budget Process 2017-2018
Jose Rios-Sanchez and Alex LaValle made a presentation on the budget and appealed to the board for feedback.
Salaries and hourly wage and Tuition may go up again.
There’s a deficit that was lowered from $200,000 to $84,000. Expenses are growing quickly and revenue is not, so they may do Budget freeze, reallocation or cut some AS programs.
…But how will this affect me?
The AS could see budget freezes and, if things get bad enough, potential cuts. This could mean reductions in the number of events AS offices put on (speakers, concerts, etc), the number of student employment opportunities available and more. Not a good time.
By Hailey Murphy
On November 30th, 2017, the AS Board met in Old Main 340 for their weekly meeting, without ASVP for Diversity Erick Yanzon. Here’s what was discussed.
Information Items- Legislative Agenda
At the meeting, ASVP for Governmental Affairs elect Ana Ramirez showed the in-depth documents, drafted by the AS Legislative Affairs Council, that will make up the Legislative Agenda. This agenda determines what student lobbiers will bring to the legislature.
The first issue reviewed by the board was regarding civic participation. This agenda item proposes that high schools across the state do more to engage students with the civic process by teaching them about the political process. Having more informed youth, according to Ramirez, makes them more likely to vote young and continue to vote for the rest of their life.
The LAC also hopes that such legislation would increase the voting turnout in younger age demographics.
The second agenda item discusses different sources of revenue available to Washington State. This revenue would go towards higher education to increase affordability and accessibility. Among their revenue proposals are taxing cannabis, taxing lottery winnings and increasing the estate tax.
Simrun Chhabra, AS President, suggested that the LAC educate students going to Lobby Day in Olympia on these taxes. Chhabra’s group at last year’s Lobby Day focused on the estate tax, due to being more familiar with it, and this ended up costing them.
“When we went in to lobby, we focused on the estate tax and the legislature wasn’t responsive to that,” Chhabra said. If students are more familiar with the taxes, they can focus on taxes more likely to pass.
The next agenda item was regarding the unionization of undergraduate students. College students are often used as a “cost saving alternative” to full time staff, according to the LAC document, resulting in being underpaid and overworked. ww
This item proposes that universities be required to recognize undergraduate employee unions. A union gives students the opportunity to collaborate with universities for fair employee treatment.
This agenda item was also passed by the Washington Student Association (WSA), a coalition of four-year universities in Washington that lobbies on behalf of students. This means that, in addition to Western students lobbying for this issue, WSA will also lobby as a representative for all students of all twelve Washington universities.
Another item brought back to the legislative agenda seeks to bring more support to sexual assault survivors on college campuses. This includes increasing funding for more support services, as well as endorsing WSA’s plan to exempt universities from the Administrative Procedures Act. This would allow universities to change the process by which a perpetrator is removed from higher education.
By changing this process, Ramirez said, survivors would be less involved in getting the perpetrators removed and thus wouldn’t be put in potentially traumatic situations.
Annie Gordon, ASVP for Student Life, expressed mixed feelings on this item. While she supports more programming for sexual assault survivors, she also wants the AS Board to support rehabilitation of former perpetrators. After the board sent out a letter on sexual assault last spring, many students contacted Gordon, concerned that they were failing to support rehabilitation. Gordon cautioned the LAC on how they word their stance.
“Inherently, when we start talking about policies regarding removing people from higher education, we’re taking a strong position… and we could be suggesting that we don’t support rehabilitation,” Gordon said.
The last agenda item will be new to LAC’s agenda this year. This item seeks to create a self sustaining loan program in Washington that would provide scholarships to undocumented students. Because undocumented students can’t take out federal loans, they often have to pay out of pocket for higher education. This legislation seeks to give undocumented students access to scholarships.
According to Ramirez, 120 DACA recipients lose it everyday. This number will rise to 1,200 in March. With these students losing DACA, they will also lose access to loans, making this legislation all the more pertinent.
Board Reports
In the Board Reports, ASVP for Business and Operations Alex LaValle and ASVP for Academic Affairs Hunter Eider reported on the AS Student Technology Fee Committee meeting. The committee is reviewing the student technology fee, as they do every five years. At the meeting, they contemplated changing the print quota.
While many students want a larger print quota, LaValle also said that many students have no use for the quota, as they print off campus.
Gordon discussed improving safety on the Ridge after two instances of indecent exposure. She’s met both with Sue Sullivan, the Director of Environmental Health and Safety, and Ridge RAs. Among potential proposed solutions were exterior cameras, more lighting for a parking lot 15R and creating a safety survey.
Gordon proposed trying to create a hall specific Western alert system. Through the current alert system, alerts are only sent out if there’s an immediate threat. So if someone gets into a dorm hall and is gone by the time police arrive, there may be no alert.
With a hall-specific system, Gordon hopes that alerts will be sent to students who are affected, despite University Police’s assessment of immediate danger.
“We have a lot of residents right now that are actively stating that they don’t feel safe,” Gordon said. However, these ideas still need more deliberation.
Additionally, Gordon reported on The Trevor Project’s assessment of Western. The Trevor Project is a non-profit organization working to prevent suicide among LGBTQ+ youth. They reported back to the Suicide Awareness Committee on what they could do to improve suicide prevention.
In response, the committee is drafting a strategic plan to improve suicide prevention on campus. Among their plan is a QPR training program. This program teaches people how to prevent suicide when someone’s in a crisis.
Last Wednesday, a master trainer from QPR came to Western. They trained a number of faculty and students on how to use QPR, then became certified trainers themselves. Gordon was among those trained, and now hopes to inform others on this method.
Research has shown, according to Gordon, that having a high population of QPR trained citizens decreases the suicide rates in that area dramatically.
Hunter Eider, ASVP for Academic Affairs, reported on the faculty senate’s recent meeting with President Sabah Randhawa and Provost Brent
Carbajal, in which ideals of shared governance on campus were discussed. These discussions were spurred after Western signed a third party contract with Study Group without consulting faculty.
At the meeting, faculty stated they want better communication pathways, as well as more student involvement in shared governance, according to Eider.
Ramirez then informed the Board that, in addition to Local Lobby Day, ESC Lobby Day and Environmental Lobby Day, there will be a Disability Outreach Center lobby day this upcoming year.