In the last assembly meeting of the semester, the IU Graduate and Professional Student Organization broke a record.
Representatives passed three resolutions, putting this year’s total at 13 pieces of legislation, the most pieces of resolution passed in a single year.
The GPSO passed a resolution in support of IU President Michael McRobbie’s reaffirmation of IU’s commitment to serve persons “without regard to their age, race, disability, ethnicity, gender, gender identity, marital status, national origin, religion, sexual orientation or veteran status” that came in light of the passage of Senate Bill 101.
“It essentially just says that we agree with the president, we support him in his message about RFRA and we want to restate our commitment to nondiscrimination on behalf of GPSO,” GPSO President Brady Harman said.
The group also passed a resolution calling for changes in the rape alert emails sent by the IU Police Department.
The resolution calls for the removal of the phrase “rape by force.”
“The use of ‘rape by force’ suggests that there are different kinds of rape, and what we probably should be focusing on instead is that there are different kinds of force,” said Shadia Siliman, a graduate research assistant at the Kinsey Institute. “This suggests that there is rape that happens without force being involved.”
The resolution also calls for the replacement of the current safety tips with gender-neutral bystander intervention tips.
“We think that bystander tips would be more effective because you hear something happening and you think, ‘If I can hear it, someone else can hear it and someone else will do something about it,’” said Meagan Allen, vice chair of the GPSO diversity committee. “Well, everyone thinks this and then no one does something about it.”
The GPSO also passed an omnibus sustainability resolution.
The Bicentennial Strategic Plan approved in December calls for researchers to identify grand challenges throughout the next few years.
The plan defines a grand challenge, a term also referenced in IU-Bloomington’s strategic plan as a major and widespread problem that is best identified and tackled by multidisciplinary teams of researchers.
The GPSO resolution calls for researchers to emphasize sustainability when identifying grand challenges.
The Residence Hall Association recently passed a bill calling for McRobbie to sign the American College and University Presidents’ Climate Commitment before the end of the next academic year.
More than 650 college or university presidents have already signed the American College and University Presidents’ Climate Commitment, according its website.
These college and university presidents have promised that their college or university will complete an emissions inventory, take immediate steps to reduce emissions, set a target date for becoming climate neutral, integrate sustainability into the education experience and make the inventory, steps and plans available to the public.
The GPSO resolution supports the RHA bill.
The resolution also calls for IU to expand solar energy production at IU-Bloomington to one megawatt within the next two years.
“Yes, it’s great to do small-scale solar and to put a couple of panels here and a couple of panels there, but to make a meaningful impact and reduce emissions and save us money in a really significant way, we need to do it at a large scale,” GPSO sustainability officer Andrew Bredeson said.
Finally, representatives approved the nominees for four appointed officer positions.
Though the executive committee nominates the applicants for the appointed officer positions, the general assembly must approve the nominees.
Earning a $1,000 fellowship, the appointed officers include the awards officer, a position now held by Adrian Paneto; the benefits officer, a position held by Ben Draper; the diversity officer, a position held by Brittany Witherspoon and the sustainability officer, a position held by Kyle Norweg.
