Oswego State President Deborah Stanley held the first town hall meeting of the school year at 6 p.m. on Sept. 29 in the Marano Campus Center auditorium.
The town hall meetings provide students the opportunity to ask Stanley questions about their concerns related to the campus and school experience. Stanley is joined by faculty to help her answer questions in more detail.
Stanley began the meeting by acknowledging the speakers that have come to Oswego State this semester.
“It’s great that we have all these speakers that came to this campus,” Stanley said.
The town hall meeting started off with a question regarding plans to build a staircase to the lake on the west side of the campus. Stanley directed the question to Mitch Fields, the associate vice president for facilities services.
“We are open to the possibility of the staircase,” Fields said. “There was a study by O’Brien & Gere of what we could or couldn’t do; that’s covered by the department of environmental conservation.”
The school implemented a new policy this fall in the residence halls with desk attendants and resident assistants no longer checking ID cards past midnight.
The school thought that by having a person at the desk, they could monitor the number of people entering the dorm at one time and stop the people who are not supposed to be there.
“Instead of someone checking the person, a person there could at least check the people coming in,” Stanley said. “The change was made in good faith, it was not a money issue, we have someone on the desk eyeballing.”
After the town hall meeting, the school changed its policy and now there is someone on staff during the hours of 11 p.m. to 3 a.m. checking students’ IDs as they enter the dorms.
Another issue that was raised at the meeting was the code enforcement with off-campus housing. Houses that students were living in were recently condemned, forcing them to live somewhere else temporarily.
“We can do more, we used to bring landlords and students together and talk,” Stanley said.
The room got quiet when a student asked about the third degree rape that was reported in Hart Hall and asked why students were not notified of it. The rape was reported to University Police on Sept. 12 about an incident that occurred on Sept. 8.
“It did not go beyond a report,” Stanley said. “It’s not being prosecuted yet but shipped to a judicial system at the school. When it happens, the report goes to the blotter but the victim did not go forward. We are very proud about the Title IX and how we handle incidents, pursuing the incidents of sexual assault and making this campus safe.”
