Suicide prevention and the Emporia State sexual assault policy were two topics in the Associated Student Government’s bi-weekly meeting last Thursday.
After inducting two new senators, Muhamed Mustafa, at large, and Shelby Martin, undeclared, the ASG meeting moved on to discuss suicide prevention and awareness.
“The more people that talk about it, the more people say about it,” said Vicki Brickell, from community counseling services and a volunteer for Emporia Suicide Prevention. “If you have a friend or family member that is struggling, don’t be silent about it. Talk to them. Let them know they are not alone. They don’t need to fight that battle alone.”
Brickell emphasized that suicide should not be a “dirty” word, and encourages people to talk about it. The Emporia Suicide Prevention program will host its second Out of Darkness Walk on Saturday, Sept. 27 to “honor people you may know, and provide support for those who need it.” Brickell also encourages student organizations to get involved in the walk, and help set it up.
After hearing back from the first Kansas Board of Regents meeting on Sept. 24, the senate has a tentative day scheduled for Higher Education Day and will be pushing for a higher voter registration through Civic Involvement. The deadline to register is Oct. 14.
Two reserve fund requests, one for Beta Alpha Psi and one for the Emporia State Japanese Association, were heard, SOS advocating from ESU received reserved funds request to attend lectures. Finally, the Glass Guild’s request was tabled for ASG’s next meeting.
Lynn Hobson, dean of students and ASG adviser, spoke about the updates and changes being made to ESU’s sexual assault policy.
“What you see that comes out on October first is going to have all the information about what we did in 2013 related to security on campus,” Hobson said. “It ranges from everything from light issues to sexual harassment, discrimination, alcohol abuse, safety, fire alarm systems – all of it.”
The new policy will be uploaded to the university’s website at an indefinite date, but should be soon.
“Most of what had to be done for a new policy was … almost exclusively about including in your policy all of the process that you use to investigate a report of any sort of sexual harassment,” Hobson said. “The VAWA (Violence Against Women Act) amendment was very specific. For example, when you give a report about any form of sexual harassment, we’re supposed to have an investigation and findings will have to be included within 60 days. Our policy now says that.”
Later in the meeting, the senate also discussed the issue revolving around the Emergency Alert which announced that a sexual assault occurred in west Emporia Sept. 14.
The alert was deemed a timely warning.
“A timely warning is issued when you have reason to believe there is an imminent or ongoing threat,” Hobson said. “Before you can issue one, you have to get to the point in believing there might be that. Just because something happens on a certain day doesn’t mean that we are at the point of knowing enough about the incident to know whether or not there should be an alert given. I can’t say too much about this because this is an ongoing investigation.”
Some discussion ensued about how officials dictated location and timeliness of the Emergency Alert.
“This thing isn’t going to go away,” Hobson said. “It’s going to become more and more serious, so your voices… are incredibly important, and your understanding of the laws that we are required to follow are also important because that’s where you can intervene with your voice just knowing what the boundaries are.”
Other discussion included the GPA students must maintain to remain on ASG. As a group, ASG decided to make the minimum cumulative GPA 2.5 or higher for senate members, and 2.75 or higher for the executive board.
The next regular ASG meeting will be held at 5:15 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 2 in the Senate Chambers.
