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MSU President Lou Anna K. Simon spoke at Wednesday’s meeting for the Associated Students of Michigan State University, or ASMSU, and presented a list of university initiatives and concerns to be addressed.
Her first orders of business had to do with campus health initiatives and behavioral health awareness.
“There’s a work group that’s been established of people who represent the counseling center, student health and psychiatry faculty members that are experts in their area, and they worked with a consulting firm on a way to think about and integrate a behavioral health model that would put us at the cutting edge of behavioral health issues at MSU,” Simon said. “That report was given to the committee last week to look at this week, and after that it will be given to me for broader discussion with a plan to implement those ideas by fall of 2017.”
She then went into discussing the addition of the new WorkLife office at MSU, which has come under fire as in its place once stood the Women’s Resource Center.
“The initial group that looked at restruction and creating the WorkLife office included the director of the Women’s Resource Center,” Simon said. “The judgment of that group was that we should move to an integrated WorkLife office that would take on for most of the campus the things that were leadership, tenure and a whole list of things that go with equity — Racial equity, gender equity.”
Resources for the Family Resource Center would be consolidated, and those were moved to Vice President for Auxiliary Enterprises Vennie Gore, Simon said.
This followed a long conversation about campus initiatives for sexual assault and the handling of MSU’s sexual assault cases and sanctions.
“Reports show that there are very few assaults that are not known to people on MSU’s campus,” Simon said. “This means it’s a Spartan problem, not an external one coming from the community. And that’s the part of the message we’re trying to hone.”
Simon was not a part of the student forum about the closing of the Women’s Lounge Tuesday night, and faced questions from ASMSU representatives about the university’s quick decision-making process. Not much light was shed from Simon, who left shortly after.
“The first thing I said was, ‘what the heck happened to communication?’ in August,” ASMSU President Lorenzo Santavicca said. “That was the biggest thing that came up last night at the forum, and certainly we’re trying to work on ways to address campus safety for all students, but specifically women students first and foremost.”
Simon didn’t stay long enough to answer questions from student activists on the topic of the closing of the different women’s resources, who then were able to voice their opinions to ASMSU representatives. All of the students who appeared at the ASMSU meeting were also in attendance of the Women’s Lounge forum Tuesday night.
“The Women’s Lounge is a very beloved space,” sociology senior Katrina Groeller said. “It is a relaxed space. I have never been more disappointed to be a Spartan. The lounge is gone. The Women’s Resource Center is gone. There is nothing really for women students anymore.”
Zoology senior Alyse Maksimoski, who has been an advocate for bringing back the Women’s Lounge since it closed, expressed continued disappointment toward the university’s handling of the female students.
“I have done tours for this university for three years, and I have always been so proud of MSU,” Maksimoski said. “But I can’t do that anymore. I don’t like it anymore. I hate it here. I cannot proudly tell incoming freshmen here that a quarter of them will be sexually assaulted, knowing that the university has taken all these resources away.”
The meeting adjourned with ASMSU representatives sharing contact information with the student activists, vowing for future conversations.
