Student Governing Association senators gathered on Thursday in Wildcat Chamber to to hear from Scott Jones, director of the Office of Institutional Equity, and Kelli Farris, executive director of the Center for Student Involvement.
Jones spoke about the Office of Institutional Equity Annual Report. In the report, there were 251 unique cases reported, which is down 6.8 percent from last year. While the total number of unique cases went down, reported allegations went up from 338 to 367.
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The allegation with the highest amount of gain was sexual harassment — it went from 21 cases in the 2017-18 school year to 63 in the 2018-19 school year.
“The highest level of review that we have is an administrative review,” Jones said. “Thirty-eight of our cases went to that highest and most significant level … most of the complainants in these cases and most of the respondents are students.”
Jones also said discrimination based on race, ethnicity or national origin went down last year — from 22 reported cases to 9.
The OIE office responds to these cases on an individual basis. In addition, to prevent crimes related to sexual violence, sexual orientation and a number of other crimes based on sex, 30 training sessions were provided to campus groups last year. Over 1,000 people were reached using these sessions.
Farris spoke on the transition to OrgCentral from OrgSync. The biggest change is the new public-facing home page that gives students and prospective students easy access to see what is available at K-State.
“We heard from New Student Services that new students always want to browse what is available on campus,” Farris said.
The CSI is currently working on registration of student organizations. There are 245 registered as of Sept. 12. The deadline to register is Sept. 27.
In addition to hearing from the speakers, Hayley Spellman, senior in political science, was appointed as elections commissioner. Spellman has three goals for the upcoming year: increasing voter turnout to 5,000 students, making elections as positive as possible and developing the elections regulations codes.
Later on in the meeting, discussions began for the creation of the Special Committee on Rural Student Success. The bill approving the formation of the special committee will be up for a final vote and debate next Thursday.
Senate will reconvene in the Cottonwood Room of the K-State Student Union at 6 p.m. next Thursday. They will then move to Wildcat Chamber at 7 p.m.
