“If I looked at the conversations we are currently having, they are very similar to what is happening across the country,” Simon said. “Just looking at the numbers we’ve been monitoring all year … we know the reports that are coming from students themselves that this is an issue that is coming with them from high school.”

Simon said MSU plans to unveil a new video on sexual assault at the student Academic Orientation Program next year and encouraged faculty at the meeting to come forward with ideas for better ways to go about combating issues that have been prevalent on campus.

Simon also said she was looking to put together a problem-solving “thought group” of individuals on campus.

Acting Provost June Youatt spoke to some of Simon’s concerns and said recent funds allocated to MSU’s public health program could help find solutions to behavioral health problems.

“In the face of some other difficult things in the past few days, it’s a way to further our role in communities and another way for Michigan State to do what we do,” Youatt said.

Although counseling and other services are mobilized to deal with such issues, Simon said more emphasis needs to be put on students, who need to be responsible for one another.

“The question is: ‘What else should we be talking about, knowing this is a national issue?’” she said. “This student group tends to (look after each other) electronically, but not physically.”

As Spartans, students should look after one another and intervene when they see something they think is wrong, Simon said.

But Simon said MSU is limited in what it can do in places that are tied to campus, but are not directly on campus.

Such was the case in two student deaths currently under investigation and a civil disturbance in Cedar Village following the Big Ten Championship game.

Some students agree with Simon’s sentiment of calling fellow Spartans to be better as a community.

Sociology freshman Amra Dzomba said besides small clubs, she thinks no great effort has been made to look out for one another on campus.

Dzomba also said destructive behaviors are a problem on campus.

“Some students start drinking and doing drugs in high school and some of that translates to college,” she said. “But binge drinking seems more acceptable in college when it’s not acceptable or normal.”