Student Government (SG) received presentations on DEI-related changes, SG’s Spring Retreat and election tabling, and confirmed Outspoken’s Vice President at their Feb. 13 meeting.

DEI Award Compliance

Sandra Woodruff, Executive Director for Marketing and Operations for RIT’s Division of Access, Engagement, and Success, presented on proposed changes to policy surrounding the Isaac L. Jordan Sr. Faculty and Staff Pluralism Awards. The prospective revisions are part of an effort to ensure compliance with federal bans on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs. 

Edits focus largely on language changes. The Isaac L. Jordan Sr. Faculty and Staff Pluralism Awards will be renamed to the “Isaac L. Jordan Sr. Faculty and Staff Awards.” Words like diversity, pluralism and inclusion will be replaced with access, engagement, success, community and belonging.

Election Tabling

SG Director of Student Relations, Trishelle Hoopes, outlined “dos and don’ts” for election tabling on behalf of Director of Elections Olivia Gauthier. SG members are encouraged to answer all questions during election tabling events, and they can provide advice as long as they give it equally. Members may encourage people to run in the elections as long as they are clear that they are not specifically endorsing the individual. SG members are expected to report infractions and ensure that no candidate promotes themselves at the tabling event.

Petitioning will begin on Monday, Feb. 16.

SG’s Spring Retreat

Mike Hibbard, Director of Operations, gave SG members an overview of what to expect for their Spring Retreat on Feb. 21. SG members will travel downtown to Swillburger for burgers, arcade games and trivia.

PawPrints

Two PawPrint petitions, “Stop RIT from Supporting Fascism” and “Temporal Cutting Ties Between RIT and Tesla,” advocating for RIT to cut ties with Tesla, were closed with a response explaining that RIT will continue to give students access to as many potential employers as possible, including Tesla. 

A petition advocating for student access to classrooms when not in use was closed with a response saying that classrooms will remain closed outside of class times for safety reasons.

The petitions “Clear paths OR cancel Classes” and “Actually plow the pedestrian Paths, salt shortage or Not” were updated with a response from Accessibility Committee Chair Suprina Kabadkar, who explained that she had met with Facilities Management Services (FMS) administrator Derek Sylvester to discuss path accessibility. At this meeting, Sylvester told Kabadkar that FMS only has 10 permanent groundskeepers on staff. Kabadkar will advocate for permanent groundskeeper positions.

Outspoken Vice President Confirmation

Although Outspoken runs its own internal elections, SG members voted to endorse second-year Electrical Engineering student Anand Caloh for an RSO serving on SG. Caloh could not attend in person, but said in a written statement, “I have always viewed it as a welcome responsibility of mine to give back to the queer community when I can.”

The meeting was adjourned after roughly an hour.