The first bill passed at the meeting addressed liability and sanctions with regard to sexual misconduct.
The resolution asks that IU have mandatory orientation for graduate students functioning as teaching assistants, associate instructors or in other “responsible employee” roles.
“Responsible employees” are required to report incidents that fall under Title IX.
The orientation would be intended to help these students understand resources for victims of sexual misconduct and the mandatory reporting policies.
“Many graduate students, particularly those who teach classes, are obligated to report any incidence of sexual assault they’re aware of to the University,” said Skyler Hutto, vice president of GPSG and chair of the health and wellness committee. “They’re not always aware of those duties, and even if they are, graduate students may not know how best to follow through on those.”
The bill also asks for IU to publish its policy on intervention regarding intradepartmental sexual misconduct and to target graduate students with bystander intervention training.
Another resolution resolved for improved alerts about crime relevant to campus, with more details. Because some GPSG members feel current safety tips place the impetus of preventing crime on potential victims, the resolution also asks for the provision of different tips.
“From here on out, we’re hoping that the safety tips are not so much victim-blaming,” Brittany Witherspoon, diversity officer, said.
GPSG also drafted a suggested format for the crime alerts, and asked for consistent inclusion of a suspect’s height, weight, race and other criteria as well as the specific denotation.
“This is helpful for us in making sure we’re getting all the information we can, and we don’t end up seeing race in some crime alerts, and then race not discussed in another,” said Shadia Siliman, representative of the gender studies department and contributor to the bill. “That will be really helpful for us in making these more universal, more similar to each other.”
This resolution also requests students have more accessibility to the results of campus surveys about sexual misconduct and proposes that IU adopt a “Healthy Sexuality” campaign.
Witherspoon said she hopes the actualization of such a campaign would include some kind of task force at the university level.
“Healthy sexuality campaigns deal with attacking sexual assault and awareness from a preventative standpoint, and not only from a preventative standpoint, but from a healthy, positive standpoint,” Witherspoon said.
A healthy sexuality campaign would promote discussion of consent and discussion of sexuality from an informed, positive point of view, Witherspoon said.
Three bills passed Friday came from the health and wellness committee.
One resolution asked for the University to investigate increasing on-campus dining options in places frequented by graduate students, such as Ballantine Hall or the School of Public and Environmental Affairs.
The resolution also asks that nutritional information for on-campus dining options be more accessible, and that common allergens and main ingredients become more easily identifiable.
Another resolution from the health and wellness committee resolved that the University should provide more ergonomic awareness and services to students, as well as more programming related to optometric health.
“Eye health commonly deteriorates over the course of one’s graduate school years,” Hutto said.
The third and final resolution from the health and wellness committee requested that campus fitness centers somehow be made more accessible to graduate students, and representatives discussed different ways to do this during the meeting.
The resolution also asks that fitness facilities be integrated into any new constructions on campus.
“What I heard through my committee is that it is not easy to utilize some of the fitness facilities particularly at the hours graduate students would usually keep,” Hutto said.
One idea discussed at the meeting was to reserve a specific time for graduate students at campus fitness areas or to allow graduate students access to faculty-only time at the gyms on campus.
However, representatives brought up that graduate students pay the student rate for access to fitness facilities through the student activity fee and asking for more privileges for graduate students could cost them more.
Hutto said his committee does not seek any specific change, but rather wants the University to find a way to better serve graduates in its fitness facilities.
“We want to make sure that graduate students who are paying into (the student activity fee) actually have time to take advantage of something they’re already paying for,” President Benjamin Verdi said.
