By Max Prinz

Student Life Council held its inaugural meeting of the semester on Wednesday, Sept. 24, in the newly renovated Bepler Commons in Faber Hall. The council tabled two of its more popular executive board discussion items, the Sexual Misconduct Initiatives and the Sex and Gender Equity Safety Student (S.A.G.E.S.) Coalition, for continuation at next month’s meeting.

The discussions on sexual misconduct and S.A.G.E.S. were easily the two main topics, with several members of the student gallery offering testimony and questions for council members. The Medical Amnesty Policy and the unease of the student population over changes to the RamFit Center were also discussed.

The issues of on S.A.G.E.S. and contraception on campus was the final discussion item on the agenda, but it was the most anticipated. Assistant Vice President and Dean of Students Christopher Rodgers attempted to clarify the university’s policy on the distribution of contraceptives on campus. Rodgers reiterated that the distribution of condoms on campus is in violation of the university’s policy on contraceptives. Students are not, however, prohibited from possessing contraception.

“[The distribution of contraception] is a violation of the policy, there’s no question,” Rodgers said. “If this is surprising, that at a Catholic, Jesuit University there is this policy on birth control, that surprises me. One of the things that we have been very eager to address is the complete misunderstanding that it is somehow a violation to possess birth control. That is not the case.”

Rodgers also said that no investigation was underway to determine the identities of the students behind the S.A.G.E.S. coalition and that he welcomed further discussion with the group.

“No, I don’t think we’re trying to investigate students who dropped a bunch of condoms on the floor of President’s Ball,” Rodgers said. “I’ve invited this group to come and talk with me. Over the past couple days I’ve heard pretty resoundingly that they are not interested in coming and talking with me.”

“I will say that the group that did this is edging into [and] brushing up against disrespect for the religious traditions, which I think is unfortunate,” Rodgers added. “Civil disagreement is encouraged. That’s part of why we have this meeting, so we can talk about what we agree on and what we disagree on. Dropping condoms in public places? That’s pretty disrespectful, not only of the policy, but of the institution that we’re all affiliated with.”

The discussion on sexual misconduct, which preceded the SAGES discussion, began with an update from United Student Government’s Sexual Assault Task Force. The task force had its first meeting Tuesday night and spoke about several of its goals, chief of which is establishing a center for victims of sexual assault.

“We discussed a lot of what we want to do,” said Caroline Corwin, co-chair of USG’s Task Force on Sexual Assault.

She continued, “One of our subcommittees is trying to help victims of sexual assault. We’re thinking of trying to have a center or specific people in the counseling center actually trained to deal with that. I know that people at the counseling center are really good, and have been good with that so far, but I think having specific people and a specific organization to deal with that would be much better.”

Dean Rodgers shared initiatives related the Campus Assault and Relationship Education (C.A.R.E.) program and welcomed the conversation about sexual misconduct. Rodgers hopes that fewer cases go unreported.

“We need to be doing all of the above when it comes to sexual assault on campus,” Rodgers said. “In an environment where we know college students are not reporting these things, we can conjecture as much as we want, but we really don’t have a clear idea. So, 25, 21, whatever that number is, as dean of students I want that number [the number of people who report sexual assaults] to rise so that we can have more people we can help, more people we can address who perhaps don’t understand that sex without consent is unacceptable in our community. The more reports we get, the more opportunity we have to change the culture.”

The Student Life Council meets on the final Wednesday of every month at 2:30 p.m. Meetings are always open to the public.

__________

Max Prinz is the Sports Editor for The Fordham Ram.