Thursday, Nov 14, a report summarizing findings from campus safety forums and listening sessions that have been held throughout the past few months was sent to the Smith community, explaining what steps the Campus Safety Advisory Group will be taking going forward and what feedback it has received about Smith’s police department.
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Earlier this semester, the Student Government Association (SGA) asked students to participate in a survey regarding safety on campus. Many respondents expressed concern about poorly-lit areas, and the issue prompted discussion about preserving safety while reducing light pollution.
In September, Smith college joined 165 other higher education institutions throughout the state of Massachusetts in signing an Amicus brief opposing the Trump administration’s revocation of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program. This comes in anticipation of the upcoming supreme court decision on the legality of DACA, which the Trump administration initially rescinded in September 2017. Arguments on the case began Tuesday, Nov 12. This ruling will impact the future of some 700,000 young immigrants.
Important changes marked this year’s Otelia Cromwell Day.
In an Oct. 18 email to the Smith Community, President Kathleen McCartney announced that the Smith College Board of Trustees voted in its October meeting to “direct Investure, the college’s outsourced endowment management firm, to exclude from the Smith College endowment all future investments with fossil fuel-specific managers” and also voted to enact a “phaseout of all current investments with fossil fuel-specific managers in the Smith College endowment.”
On Thursday, Campus Police responded to reports of swastikas drawn on the walls of Seelye, Bass and Burton halls. The swastikas were drawn in what appeared to be red marker.
Last week, the newly formed campus safety advisory group hosted a series of open forums to discuss the future of Smith College’s soon to be independent police department. The forums were intended to collect feedback from the Smith community as the advisory group begins deciding what to suggest to President McCartney in shaping the new department, which will go into effect starting July 1.
On Wednesday, the Smith Students for Social Justice and Institutional Change (SSJIC) held its first open meeting for the fall of 2019. The purpose of the meeting was to follow up on student demands and discuss the aftermath of the spring protests.
On June 10, Smith and Mount Holyoke announced that after 10 years of having a combined force, the two campus police departments will be operating independently of each other effective July 1, 2020.
If you’re a returning Smith student, you may have noticed some changes in the college’s Residence Life system. As students were informed in an email on August 26, the ResLife department has extensively restructured its staff and hierarchies in order to “better meet the needs of students and the communities they live in.” This notably involves a restructuring of student staff. Previously, traditional houses each had one Head Resident (HR) and one House Community Advisor (HCA). Now each house has two HCAs while HRs are in charge of several houses within each neighborhood. Additionally, the “areas of campus” have been shuffled and transformed into four “neighborhoods,” named for notable Smith features.