The Associated Students of the University of Nevada, Reno met for their final senate meeting before the adjournment of the ninety-first session.
The meeting was over four hours long, as the senator tried to squeeze in all the legislation readings and final reports of the session before the Joe Crowley Student Union closed for the night.
S.R. 91: A Resolution in Support of a Day of Recognition for University Police Services
Josh Reynolds, deputy chief, spoke for himself and on the behalf of Eric James, the chief of police for this resolution.
“I can confirm that the safety of our community … is paramount, that is our commitment, chief and myself,” Reynolds said. Both Reynolds and James have children that will be or are already attending UNR.
He said safety is their top priority and discussed their 24/7 commitment to safety. They teach things like women’s self-defense classes at the university in order to help combat human trafficking and help the community. He extended his gratitude to Aween Ali, senator for the College of Engineering and Mark Meiszburger, speaker pro tempore, for putting this resolution on the table.
Madison Eifert, the community relations specialist at UNRPD, oversees social media, events and community outreach. She said she appreciates the healthy discourse that occurred at the last meeting because it helps UNRPD help better their efforts for the students.
She also added that she did research on other campuses and emphasized how safe it is on the UNR campus here.
Evan Robinson said a black student was on campus in an Argenta Hall study room with four students and many students were yelling derogatory terms — which Robinson emphasized is only one incident of many.
He said the incidents get reported, but that the university can’t do anything because of the freedom of speech. Robinson said hearing about these incidents and then promoting a resolution for police feels disheartening. He urged the table to vote ‘no’ on this piece.
Hailey Gregor, a cheerleader for UNR, supported the police resolution and thanks them for always keeping her safety a priority and for their response during the UNLV shooting.
“The increased police presence during that time … I really appreciated, because I felt like we were protected and we were safe and that they were going to take care of us,” Gregor said. “I would just like to extend a thank-you to the police department.”
Meiszburger and Ali pushed for this piece to be fast-tracked because they put a lot of work in for this piece; however, Jojan argued this piece shouldn’t be fast-tracked, and it should go through committee because it was defeated and they would’ve had to have instant turn around on the piece.
“Let’s ensure it goes to committee, and if that means it’s delayed by one session, so be it because that’s the proper way to do things,” Jojan said.
Ali and Meiszburger reached out to the senators but not one responded, and they still talked to the chief and collected the proper data to re-propose this piece. The piece was fast-tracked to second reading, where Ali and Meiszburger gave a presentation on the piece, showing the table the team, talking about the difference between campus and community police and discussing the specific statistics and progress that UNRPD has made.
According to the presentation, in the past five years, there were 12 complaints against UNRPD. Only one of them was from a UNR student in 2019, and the UNR student’s complaint was unfounded. If a complaint is sustained, there are measures taken for these issues.
The outcomes of the passage of this piece will promote educational information for students, a better connection between ASUN and UNRPD and a collaborative Instagram post on Oct. 10 with the police services to honor them. This also is an open-ended piece that Ali and Meiszburger wanted to leave it like this to encourage more collaboration beyond this piece.
Ali said the chief wants to engage with the students, continue talking about future changes and keep interactions prominent going forward.
“They want to hear from the people that they serve,” Ali said. “They know nothing about you, but they would not hesitate to stand up and risk their lives for you.”
Kelsea Frobes, senator for the School of Journalism, asked about the surveys to see if there has been change or improvements from the student body about the UNRPD services, which they said has been done; however, Ali and Meiszburger did not specify what these results were.
Tori Beaulac, senator for the College of Science stressed that this piece needed weeks of research and said that the piece should be a day of connection, rather than a day of recognition. Jojan agreed with Beaulac saying that they needed to do more outreach and take longer on this resolution. He said there’s an “institutional issue” that’s prevailing with this.
“It’s about the culture of UNRPD,” Jojan said.
Joel Martin, senator for the College of Liberal Arts said that he believes they should say ‘thank you’ to police services for what they do.
“I think it needs more work,” Emma Doty, a senator for the College of Science, said, agreeing with Jojan, saying she would be willing to work on this legislation next session. Frobes agreed with Dotty, saying more surveys needed to be presented and done.
Meiszburger added that many students came to the table to give public comments in support of the piece, but Frobes replied saying that none of the people that came to the table were students of color.
Mya Skaronski, senator for the College of Liberal Arts encouraged the change of the word “recognition” to be replaced with the word “appreciated” in the piece and encourages a piece of connection instead of recognition.
“Why is it a problem when we’re appreciating officers for supporting and protecting our community,” Ali said. “This is [the] campus police we’re recognizing … Their main job is to make sure you guys are protected.”
Carmina Aglubat, senator for the College of Liberal Arts, argues this needs to go back to committee and this needs more outreach, saying she was going to vote no on the piece and do more outreach with both sides.
Rachel Perez-Alvarez, senator for the College of Agriculture, Biotechnology and Natural Resources said she was disappointed with what is said at the table.
“It’s very frustrating that we’re telling you guys that there’s a community of students here that feel that their voices have not been heard,” Perez-Alvarez said. “Throughout the session, we’ve made comments that we want to hear what our marginalized students have to say, that we want to represent them. I feel that if we pass this today, we’re not doing that, and that’s extremely disappointing.”
Antony Kuhl, senator for the College of Engineering, agreed that this piece is close, but says it needs more information from the students.
“At the end of the day, all we wanted was a collaborative appreciative post for UNR police services,” Ali said.
The piece failed to be passed with 10 ‘no’ votes, eight ‘yes’ votes and three abstains.
S.R. 91: A Resolution in Support of Title IX Presenting Annually to the Senate Body
Leaf Acklin and Mya Skaronski, senators for the College of Liberal Arts, proposed this piece due to the strong reactions from students who expressed their frustration on how the Office of Equal Opportunity and Title IX was handling their internal complaints. The piece mentions the Feifei Fan case that spurred the controversy.
The piece proposes that the Title IX director should come present annually in front of the Senate body every October, since this month is designated as Domestic Violence Awareness Month.
According to the proposal, the Title IX director will attend a meeting and update the senate on the progress and new initiatives taken.
The piece was passed unanimously by the senate body.
S.R. 91: A Resolution Condemning the Conduct of Title IX Director Zeva Edmonson
Four senators, including Elijah Houhtelling, senator for the School of Public Health; Taylor Limbacher, senator for the School of Social Work; Doty and Jojan, submitted this piece to condemn Zeva Edmonson, director for the Office of Equal Opportunity, and Title IX for leaving the March 6 senate meeting early before answering questions the senators had.
The senators felt very disrespected by her sudden leave and Jojan noted that some students attended the meeting to hear her speak and did not get that opportunity since she left.
Martin had reservations about whether they moved her presentation up on the agenda, which the speaker did. Martin also noted that it’s not in her job description to come to a senate meeting to present, but Jojan argued there should still be care for the students.
Aglubat said she was concerned about voting on this piece after they just passed a piece to encourage Edmonson to deliver a report to the senate table annually. She thinks aggressively condemning Edmonson with this piece might halt the productive movements and burn bridges.
“How can we hold people accountable if we’re too afraid to criticize them,” Jojan said in response.
This piece was originally on the table at the March 20 meeting; however, it had to be postponed due to not enough business days given to Edmonson in response to them discussing her character.
A few senators said the text of the piece was not professional and too emotionally-motivated, and that the Edmonson issue was simply a miscommunication. The tension around this issue seemed to be lessened due to weeks passing since the incident and the other Title IX piece being on the table.
The bill failed, with only two yes votes and the remainder no and abstains.
S.R. 91: A Bill To Update the Club Support Funding Policy Manual, and Department Procedure Manual
This piece discussed procedure changes, so the senators passed the piece with no discussion. Elijah Houghtelling, senator for the School of Public Health dissented to the vote of not having discussion.
S.B. 91: A Bill to Establish an Executive Branch Position for Outreach and Representation at UNR Lake Tahoe
This bill was proposed because students at the new Lake Tahoe campus are frustrated about paying ASUN fees under their tuition and not having direct representation and few to no ASUN events hosted on this campus, claiming to feel ignored by their body.
Many of the students at the Lake Tahoe campus are Sierra Nevada College students that rolled over from the previous years to finish their degrees. The remainder of the students to attend this campus will be students from UNR that are choosing to “study abroad” for a semester at this separate campus.
During public comment, Dawson Deal, ASUN president elect urged senators to vote ‘no’ on this piece. He did not blame the efforts and validated the intentions of the bills, but instead urged senators to reconsider this bill in the new session and discuss it more. He mentioned the ASUN budget crisis they are experiencing and urged them not to relocate these funds to a new position.
Stacen Suzuki, the director of executive outreach suggests it would be hypocritical to create a position for the Lake Tahoe campus, but not for other campuses and said it would be a ‘waste of money’ to have this position serve only a few dozen students.
Emma Thomsen, senator for the College of Education presented the piece encouraging this. Jojan asked her questions about why there is a position opening for this, but not other campuses and why they can’t just add this to the job description for the director of executive outreach.
Thomsen said she would be willing to put forward pieces for representation on other campuses, but adding this to the director of executive outreach’s position would put too much strain on a single student.
The bill was also presented last session and did not pass through committee or the table, but Thomsen said people are still frustrated at this separate campus and want to see representation.
Many said the senators believed they deserve representation and Thomsen said the bill is a ‘baby’ and can be changed depending on how things change at the Lake Tahoe campus.
When it came down to voting, the piece had eleven votes yes and ten votes no. However, Salah, speaker of the senate, has the power to vote and make or break a tie. If it was tied, she could vote one way or the other, but she can also make a tie by voting which would fail or pass a piece.
Salah voted ‘no’ because this piece did not pass through her committee in the previous session. This no vote created the tie, which resulted in it failing through the senate.
S.R. 91: A Resolution Seeking the Continuation of the Operational Budget Report Books
This resolution, presented by Antony Kuhl, senator for the College of Engineering and Thomsen presented this piece due to the university’s budget constraints.
Previously, UNR used to regularly publish operating budget books containing details about the amounts of state and student money spent, but these budget books have not been produced in the years following the 2021-2022 fiscal year.
Due to the increased concern of the university not publishing these budget books, this is a resolution aiming to encourage senators to request for budget books from the public record so their students have applicability to know where their money is going for the university.
This resolution was passed unanimously.
S.B.R. 91: A Binding Resolution To Provide for the Adjournment Sine Dine of the Associated Students for the 91st Senate Session
This piece was passed unanimously, marking the end of the 91st session.
Jaedyn Young can be reached at jaedynyoung@sagebrush.unr.edu or on Twitter @jaedyn_young3.
