With the NC State administration under fire since reopening campus, Student Government (SG) has cracked down on holding the University accountable.
On Sept. 9, SG passed two pieces of legislation, R39 and R42, in response to various criticisms the administration has received from students and staff.
Sen. James Withrow, a Ph.D. candidate in biology and entomology, said R39, the University Management of COVID-19 Act, was written as a response to university administration blaming students for the campus outbreak.
“I think that the overwhelming message from the University was that it was going to be okay to have students back on campus, and that the safety procedures were safe, and that it basically wasn’t a big deal,” Withrow said. “That was reinforced by the confusion around plans, the lack of clarity about what guidelines were and also significant lack of enforcement.”
R39 states the SG has “no confidence” in NC State administration because of the mismanaged fall reopening. After a majority pass in the Senate, the legislative piece was sent by Student Body President Melanie Flowers and Student Senate President Coleman Simpson to administrators both on and off campus. Key figures included Chancellor Randy Woodson, the chairs of the University’s COVID-19 task forces, Director and Medical Director of Student Health Services Julie Casani and the UNC System Board of Governors.
Sen. Lexie Malico, a Ph.D. candidate in chemistry, said that SG plans to continue addressing past and future university responses as the semester progresses towards the spring.
“We’ve had so many pieces of COVID-related legislation calling out the administration for failures of this reopening plan and, ultimately, more recently, calling for how we think this university strategy should move forward,” Malico said. “I think we need to be focusing on student voices and the voices of those really impacted by the decisions they’re gonna make.”
Both Withrow and Malico expressed worry over the spring semester and its future policies, saying more student and staff voices need to be considered in the future decisions. Withrow said he was seeing progress with how the University was holding itself accountable, with Woodson and Vice Provost Warwick Arden saying the University did hold some fault at the Graduate Student Association All Council meeting Sept. 28.
Withrow said the decision to reopen in the fall lacked a data-driven approach and was pressured due to state funding and upper management, putting the university administration “in a position to try to make it work.”
At the All Council meeting, Woodson mentioned the tough financial position the University faced when reopening.
“We reopened because we have an obligation to the people of North Carolina who pay 75% of our budget,” Woodson said.
R42, the Class Action Lawsuit Endorsement Act, is a formal support declaration from SG to a class action lawsuit filed against the UNC System by various campus staff, who felt inadequately protected from the virus both prior and during the campus outbreaks.
“I read through it and clarified that it was just seeking injunctive relief,” Withrow said. “This wasn’t, you know, suing the University for a millions of dollars settlement, and it wasn’t specifically NC State. The legal stuff will be settled in court, but the fact that university staff are claiming that the University broke the law is something that should be taken seriously.”
Like R39, R42 was distributed by Flowers and Simpson to key organizations within the UNC System. Figures included the UNC Association of Student Governments, the NC State Staff Senate and the Graduate Student Workers Union.
“I want to see accountability from the University and the system level about what they’ve done, what went wrong, what went right, how they can do better in the spring and really see that they’re going to change how they approach the spring semester,” Malico said. “I feel like that’s critical in how we’re keeping students safe.”
For more information and updates, visit the Student Government website.
