The Ithaca College Student Governance Council met Oct. 20 to hear from Elyse Nepa, assistant director of Clery Act and Prevention Education in the Office of Public Safety and Emergency Management, to discuss what services the office provides.
Nepa explained her role within OPS, Nepa said that the Clery Act is a federal consumer protection law under the Department of Education. This law requires 137 policies and procedures for campus safety, including public safety alerts, fire drills, sexual violence prevention programs and hate crime prevention. Nepa said her job is to uphold this by making sure that OPS communicates with the student body.
“[The] spirit of the Clery Act is to be transparent, to provide information, to empower our community [and] to be safe,” Nepa said. “If you don’t have all the information, it’s hard to be safe, right?”
Alongside this, Nepa said that her own life experience has changed the way that she approaches public safety. Nepa said that she is a survivior of sexual violence and because of this she aims to not only prevent sexual violence, but to educate students on the physiological effect that trauma has on victims.
“I feel so alive in settings like this. … You can experience something incredibly traumatic in your life and also you can come out the other side,” Nepa said. “You can do this work and you can continue to serve people in a way, even if it’s hard, and there are certainly hard moments, but it’s amazing.”
Nepa went over programs that are offered within OPS, including programs that address current issues facing IC students. The “Who are you Sexting” program aims to address the increased reports of sexually explicit photos being used for extortion on college campuses. Nepa said that programs like this are built through community engagement and that as the world changes, so do the services that the safety team offers.
Sophomore Abe Marron, senator-at-large, asked Nepa about how students can feel more comfortable around OPS officers. Nepa said she acknowledged that when a uniformed officer enters a space, it can make people nervous. She said this is being addressed through events, such as Pancakes with Public Safety and the IC Runs Purple 5k for mental health advocacy, to engage the community and build bridges between OPS and the student population.
“You may have had multiple experiences with law enforcement, they may have been bad, they may have been good, and anywhere in between,” Nepa said. “It’s our responsibility to plant these seeds of how … to work with law enforcement to create safer communities.”
Senior Caleb Cackowski, vice president of communications, asked Nepa if the safety escort program, which provides students with an escort at any time, is available when a student is on The Commons. Nepa said that The Commons is not within OPS’s jurisdiction and therefore is not a part of the escort program. Despite this Nepa said that students should still call OPS if they feel unsafe, even when outside of the jurisdiction, because they would be connected with resources.
The council then began an executive session limited to only members of the council to discuss the appointment of a student to an Ithaca College committee. Senate chair Nikki Sutera said the council could not disclose the committee as it was decided during the executive session.
During senator reports, first-year student Ari Medvinsky, senator-at-large, said both he and Marron are working with the Social Justice and Sustainability Committee to address student concerns with artificial intelligence. This evaluation includes looking at how AI concerns the student body from a sustainability standpoint.
“Looking at [AI] through a sustainability lens [and] how can we mirror the school’s existing stance towards environmental sustainability … and then how can they better handle AI usage in these changing times,” Medvinsky said.
Junior Eva Horst, vice president of campus affairs, met with Stanley Bazile, vice president of Student Affairs and Campus Life on Oct. 16. Horst said that they discussed Wysa, the college’s AI-integrated self-help program. Horst said that Bazile is not looking to replace mental health resources with AI but instead supplement and enhance them.
Horst said that a new AI resource is being introduced with health services, Nebula. This new service would summarize background information on a student to give to a support counselor to make appointments quicker.
Next week the council will hear from Paula Younger, executive director of Government, Community and Constituent Relations, to present ideas that she has for the council.
The SGC is the sole representative body for the Ithaca College student community. The SGC meets from 7-9 p.m. every Monday in the Taughannock Falls room of the Campus Center. The SGC can be contacted at [email protected].
