Safety can have multiple dimensions. The Student Government Association during this week’s senate meeting was able to see two of those aspects: physical safety and inclusive security.
The senate had the opportunity to have both Department of Public Safety and Security Services officer, Sgt. Pasquale Signorino and Diversity and Affirmative Action director, Jenn Scheessele present to the campus representatives.
“We’re trying to get everyone responsible for their own safety,” said Signorino, who expressed the department’s desire to make students more aware of resources available to them.
“We’re trying to be proactive in what we do,” Signorino said. “We want to be seen on campus.”
Scheessele offered an insight into the realm of the University’s actions toward diversity issues.
“The more I hear, the more I learn and the more I am able to do something about it,” Scheessele said, encouraging students to voice their concerns. “I want to change to more proactive efforts but we need to know when something happens.”
Scheessele said she admits that there is always more that can be done, which is made evident by the recent diversity grade of C-, as determined by College Prowler, a grade she said did not surprise her.
“There’s a lot of work to be done and I’ll be the first to admit it but there’s a lot of good work being done now,” Scheessele said.
Scheessele said she also wants to create cohesiveness through the wider SLU community.
“We need to prepare our students, our faculty, our staff how to talk about these issues in order to eradicate these issues,” said Scheessele. “We all need to work together to change things.”
Though Scheessele’s presentation provided no legislative actions to be taken by senate, President Courtney Anvender was more than happy to donate senate time.
“I think it’s important to bring in speakers because senators are ambassadors to campus,” said Anvender, who expressed that ideal ambassadors are well informed in order to eliminate confusion.
SGA also took action to dedicate room 247 in theBusch Student Center to the memory of Patrick Wessel. As reported in the Oct. 28 edition of The University News, Wessel was 2007 SLU alumnus. He passed away on Oct. 24.
