Student Association President Boris Gresely encouraged assembly members to learn about what various SA committees have planned for this semester during Monday’s assembly meeting.

“If people ask you, ‘What’s SA doing?’ I want you to be able to answer,” he said.

Many SA members learned exactly that during the course of SA’s meeting on Monday night in Maxwell Auditorium. During the meeting, assembly members gave presentations about alcohol safety and raising awareness for sexual assault advocacy, Gresely discussed SA committee initiatives and Parliamentarian Stephen Thomas announced a bill that will change the way SA operates.

Assembly member Gabe Shelton discussed information he gathered from a workgroup meeting held on Thursday about alcohol safety and statistics at SU. Students in this workgroup advocated for more Orange After Dark events as well as a student center that is open 24/7 and provides entertainment, which will create more alternatives to partying, Shelton said.

According to Shelton’s presentation, “There’s been too much focus on the No. 1 party school title and not enough discussion about alcohol safety.”

Brittany Moore, director of SA’s Student Engagement Committee, described the Chancellor’s Workgroup on Sexual Violence Prevention, Education and Advocacy’s campaigns for this semester. One of the workgroup’s goals is to educate students about the definition of consent, victim blaming, slut shaming and rape culture.

Moore said another purpose of the workgroup is to “fill in the gaps and things that are still lingering from the realignment of services in the summer,” referring to the closing of Syracuse University’s Advocacy Center in June.

The chancellor’s workgroup intends to promote the “Got Consent? Be SU.R.E.” and the “#notaskingforit” campaigns and bring Catharsis Productions to SU to perform its “Beat the Blame Game” presentation.

The “Got Consent? Be SU.R.E.” campaign is focused on teaching students what it means to consent to sex, what constitutes as consent and what sexual assault is. “S.U.R.E” stands for shared understanding, respect and enthusiasm.

“#Notaskingforit” is a Twitter campaign that will demonstrate to SU students that rape is never justified. As an example, Moore added that a person who is very drunk or wearing a provocative Halloween costume only decided to drink and wear a costume, not to be raped.

Catharsis Productions, a group of trained actors and advocates, travels nationwide to put on entertaining performances that center on rape culture for university students and other groups. Members of the group act out realistic situations involving consent, victim blaming and slut shaming.

In his presidential report, Gresely expanded the conversation about focus and working groups. He described the initiatives of SA’s Academic Affairs committee, which include digitizing and publicizing syllabi and enhancing the multilingual writing center. The purpose of publicizing syllabi is to give students an idea of a class’s curriculum and workload before they enroll, which may decrease a student’s likelihood of dropping a class.

Gresely also discussed the concept of wireless printing via kiosks in campus buildings. By the end of the semester, Information Technology and Services hopes to conduct a test run and install several kiosks that students can send documents to and have them printed, he said.

Published on October 28, 2014 at 12:04 am

Contact Alexa: atorrens@syr.edu