Nearly a month after Chancellor Kent Syverud announced the restructuring of campus sexual violence support services, students said they want a more open dialogue with administrators about the changes.

Syracuse University community members were given a chance to voice their concerns about the closing of the Advocacy Center and other changes to sexual assault resources at a listening meeting held on Monday.

The listening meetings were created after many Syracuse University community members’ expressed concerns to student affairs about the sudden removal of the Advocacy Center on June 4 and the centralization of services for victims of sexual assault to the Counseling Center. The same day SU’s chancellor Kent Syverud announced these changes in a memorandum, an online petition was created demanding that the chancellor reinstate the Advocacy Center. The petition, created on May 30, has almost 8,000 signatures now.

Rebecca Reed Kantrowitz, dean of student affairs, announced in an email on June 19 to the community that there would be a series of listening meetings held on campus in June, July, August and during the fall semester.

Sam Meyers, who graduated from SU in 2013 and was a co-leader of Sex-Esteem and helped organize Take Back the Night during her time at the university, said the meeting seemed more like an “outlet to release frustration” than a dialogue.

Meyers said she hoped the meeting would lead to consideration of reinstating the Advocacy Center, but by the end of the meeting it seemed that possibility was not on the table.

She added that she hopes the future meetings will have a good back and forth dialogue to move the conversation forward. A ground rule for the next meeting, she added, should be that all options, such as reinstatement of the Advocacy Center, be considered.

“If that recognition occurs, then I think there is hope for these meetings,” Meyers said.

Syverud has yet to release a public statement acknowledging the community’s reaction to the sudden changes in sexual assault services. Syverud was not in attendance of the first listening meeting. However, Kantrowitz said she has been speaking with the chancellor frequently about the matter and the community will hear from him soon.

Kantrowitz said the listening meeting was held to help clarify questions about the new structure for sexual assault services, provide an opportunity for members of the community to share concerns and to discuss the next steps moving forward with the new structure.

During the meeting, a panel of administrators sat in a row facing the students and faculty members in attendance. Tiffany Steinwart, the dean of Hendricks Chapel, moderated the meeting.

The following administrators, including Kantrowitz, sat on the panel:

Cory Wallack, director of the Counseling Center
-Rebecca Dayton, associate vice president for the health and wellness portfolio for the Division of Student Affairs
-Katelyn Cowen, director of the Office of Health Promotion
-Cynthia Maxwell Curtin, Title IX coordinator
-Jill Ouikahilo, director of communications for the Division of Student Affairs

Kantrowitz said the meeting helped provide insight when community members voiced their concerns about the loss of the Advocacy Center.

“Clearly this notion of having a community of survivors and that they have a place to go and a voice is very important,” she said. “And I think that’s something that we as a community need to talk more about.”

Kantrowitz clarified that educational groups such as A Men’s Issue and Sex Esteem will continue to meet in the same space and coordinate with the same administrators who previously ran the Advocacy Center. The Take Back the Night program will continue as well.

“It’s really important for peers to be working with one another,” Kantrowitz said. “That’s not being taken away.”

Future listening meetings will be structured the same way with the same people on the panel to clarify and explain what the new structure will look like in the fall, Kantrowitz said. The meetings, she said, are not meant to build off of each other. She added that she hopes to draw in new community members for each meeting.

Derek Ford, a graduate student in the cultural foundations of education program, said he and other students were hoping for more of an open dialogue during the listening meeting.

“Unfortunately it seems as though the listening meetings are about reiterating and defending the changes they made,” Ford said.

Ford said he and a few other people will be meeting with Kantrowitz on Wednesday and said he hopes to work with her and the university to make future listening meetings more democratic.

Meanwhile, Ford said students on campus are still organizing on their own for a campaign to bring back the advocacy center. The first meeting for this campaign was held last Wednesday, he said.

Ford added that if the administration does not work to compromise with the students, it is likely that students will protest and take action themselves as seen from the massive initiative students have already taken this summer.

“I still have hope,” Ford said. “The fight is not over, but my hope is that the university will open itself up for reconsideration.”

Published on June 29, 2014 at 5:23 pm

Contact Anna: almerod@syr.edu