The 18th Undergraduate Senate discussed a bill in response to President Donald Trump’s travel ban and disputed renewed criticism of the Stanford Student Enterprises (SSE) management. Senators also reported on their efforts to bring sexual assault reporting app Callisto to campus and heard funding requests.
Executive order response
Representatives from the Graduate Student Council (GSC) reported that, in total, 73 students at Stanford were affected by last Friday’s executive order that banned nationals of seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States. Among them were four affected undergraduates.
The GSC presented a joint resolution in response to the order commending the University’s statement of support for affected students and calling on the University to “make the repeal of this order an active and visible priority of Stanford University going forward.”
Author Trevor Martin, a fifth-year Ph.D. student in biology, focused on the impact of the resolution on Stanford students.
“The resolution is ambiguous enough for Stanford to be able to take a stand on it,” Martin said. “It’s not necessarily a political resolution but something that should really help Stanford students regardless of political affiliation or their thoughts on Trump.”
The resolution received unanimous support from the Senate in a straw poll and will be put to an official vote in subsequent meetings.
SSE
Senators also provided official responses to controversy over SSE management, after a Daily article published Tuesday cited anonymous senators’ complaints about the transparency and conduct of CEO Jelani Munroe ’16.
“From the start of his role in August up until now, at no point have I witnessed any reasons for concern about his performance,” said Senate Chair Shanta Katipamula ’19. “Should senators have any questions about the Student Store, please approach Jelani directly to ask. There’s no need to hide behind an anonymous news article.”
Callisto update
Following up on the approval of the pilot launch of Callisto — an online sexual assault reporting service — on the Stanford campus, Katipamula provided updates on the implementation of the program in anticipation of the 2017-18 school year.
According to Katipamula, the Callisto launch is currently in the contract negotiation phase. In the interim, a number of student groups have come together to create related events and workshops. Senators reported that Grace Poon, coordinator of prevention education and training for the Title IX Office and SARA (Office of Sexual Assault and Relationship Abuse) are working on upstander intervention training and a Stanford Sexual Health Peer Resource Center workshop to be held Wednesday.
Contact Adithi Iyer at adithii ‘at’ stanford.edu.