GSS to vote on preferred name policy for LGBT students’ benefit
By Megan Henry | Nov. 2, 2014A resolution drafted by Elliot Long, LGBT affairs commissioner, to support a university-wide preferred name and pronoun policy will be voted upon at Graduate Student Senate's biweekly Monday meeting at 7:30 p.m. The policy would allow students to change their pronouns based on their gender expression or lack thereof. For example, a student who does not identify as male or female could select the pronoun “they” to use in university settings. “(Commissioner) Long would like to reform university policy so that there is a preferred name and pronoun policy in place so that members of the (OU) community are referred to by their preferred name and gender pronoun,” said Carl Edward Smith III, GSS president. A discussion about cultural awareness and understanding will also take place in response to costumes worn at the Halloween Block Party on Oct. 25. “A number of students expressed frustration and concern with some costumes that showed up at the Halloween Block Party,” Smith said. “There were people in attendance wearing Arab clothing ... with a suicide vest on. That can be very offensive to people in those communities because that’s not a part of their culture. “Those stereotypes create expectations in our minds and can be very damaging to the way we view other cultures.” Despite being in poor taste, it is not a official violation of OU’s Student Code of Conduct, Smith said. Susanne Dietzel, director of OU’s Women’s Center, will speak about the graduate assistant parental leave policy and a discussion will take place concerning the policy. A resolution to discontinue grad fest until 2015 will be on the table. At the previous GSS meeting on Oct. 20, the discussion was tabled to the Nov. 3 meeting so that alternative funding models for grad fest could be explored, Smith said. “Unless there are some solid alternative funding models for grad fest, we are going to vote to discontinue grad fest,” Smith said. The grad fest party — that usually less than one percent of OU graduate students attend — costs two-thirds of senate’s budget, Smith said. “There are far more valuable projects that do require money that we would like to focus on this year,” Smith said. @megankhenry mh573113@ohio.edu
