University Senate was action-packed and attendance-packed at its meeting on Wednesday, Oct. 22.
The Senate Task Force to Address Sexual Violence and Survivor Support co-chair Carol Stabile presented the task force’s recommendations at the meeting held in Lawrence 115.
The recommendation is titled “Twenty Students Per Week,” addressing the statistic that one in five women is assaulted during college according to the Center for Disease Control and the White House.
“The problem of widespread campus sexual violence is not a new one,” Stabile and the report said. “But national attention to the problem, inspired by campus activists, scholars, lawyers, politicians and the leadership provided by the White House has broken the silence and secrecy upon which sexual violence thrives.”
Stabile emphasized the role of athletics and fraternity and sorority life in sexual violence.
“We cannot ignore the fact that, despite the relatively small number of students directly involved in their activities,” Stabile and the report said, “Athletics and Fraternity and Sorority Life (FSL) play disproportionately powerful roles in facilitating or tolerating conditions in which sexual violence occurs on campus.”
The recommendations targeting Greek Life include the immediate suspension of FSL expansion, assigning research and analysis of FSL to a senate standing committee and the formation of an FSL Sexual Assault Task Force.
The task force also recommended the empowerment of Senate Intercollegiate Athletics Committee to address sexual violence and a Title IX training for FSL, athletics, band, debate and club sports.
The recommendations are divided into three parts: critical policy changes, prevention and education changes and administrative changes were accompanied by the office responsible for making said changes, the projected cost and deadline.
The first deadline is Nov. 19, Several costs are currently to be determined, but some of the bigger sticker prices include $205,000 to hire a Title IX coordinator and three deputy coordinators. Later during a question from the audience interim President Scott Coltrane said that the numbers, “made his eyes bulge a little.”
All discussion of the recommendations will be held until the Nov. 5 University Senate meeting, in addition to a student forum Nov. 3 and task force meeting Nov. 4.
Also during the meeting Coltrane and acting provost Frances Bronet discussed strategic planning and the UO’s competitive excellence plan and Connie Ballmer talked about the presidential search. Ballmer is the chair of the presidential search committee, she started off the meeting with an update on the current search. Ballmer repeated the search will be closed to protect the privacy of presidential candidates and that there is no timeline for the search.
“If we do not find a great candidate we will keep looking,” said Ballmer. “We will work with urgency and speed but we will not rush.”
During the discussion portion, university student senator Andrew Lubash asked about distinctions between the presidential search and advisory committees, highlighting that the presidential search committee has more power in the search. Lubash also asked Ballmer if she thought it was odd that two members of the search committee are married.
“I have not thought about that,” Ballmer said. “I will think about that.”
The next meeting of the University Senate will take place Nov. 5, in Lawrence 115.