President Duane Nellis addressed sexual assault on campus at Tuesday’s Graduate Student Senate meeting.
President Nellis informed the senate that since January through September 2018, Ohio University has had one less sexual assault then the previous year. Despite this statistic, Nellis said, “One is too many.”
“People are feeling more empowered to come forward and I am glad they are coming forward. I want them to come forward,” Nellis said.
The body also heard from one of its own members, Rachel Stroup, the commissioner for women’s affairs. Stroup gave a short presentation about events coming up, and ways in which graduate students can start conversations about sexual misconduct.
“As teachers or for those of you who serve in leadership roles over undergraduate students, this is hard to introduce these conversations in the classroom,” Stroup said. “Given that we have a certain curriculum and course objectives that we need to accomplish in a set amount of time.”
Stroup explained that sometimes she will offer her own students extra credit to attend events surrounding the issue.
“The Women’s Center has a very comprehensive list of goals and how you can incorporate those teaching outcomes into your classrooms and activities,” Maria Modayil, president of GSS, said.
After the discussion on sexual assault, GSS appointed new members into their body and appointed a new vice president for finance. New members include Daniel Warmke, Allison Mcintosh and Christopher Meyer. The body then appointed Michael Senteney, who was previously the commissioner for academics affairs for research, for vice president of finance.
Modayil also discussed Grad Connect, which was an event held last Tuesday by GSS.
“It was a really great success, we were expecting like 30 people to show up or 20, and we had over 100 people there,” Modayil said. “We also attracted a lot more grad students from outside our body, which is great.”
Senteney presented three budget requests that the GSS budget committee had met previously to tonight’s meeting to discuss. The first request was submitted in April of 2018 and came from Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine Physicians for Patients group. The group requested $410.84 from GSS for transportation for an event they will be attending in Detroit during winter break.
The Neuroscience Research Day Organizing Committee requested $448.50 from GSS. They are taking 15 graduate students to Lake Hope Lodge for a Neuroscience Research Day event on October 6. The money would be used to cover the students meals at the event.
Student Personnel Association is bringing in keynote speaker Mark Guerrero during Student Affairs Week and is hoping to advertise for this in Baker. As a result they requested $520 from GSS.
All three requests were approved by the body.
