Call To Action made its presence known to the student body government Monday night where topics of diversity were addressed that ranged from racially charged tweets to the Office of Student Affairs involvement.
Sydney Howell, Secretary for the Black Student Union and Kevin Lewis, BSU president came to the Undergraduate Student Government meeting to ask them to get more involved with the new campaign, Call To Action and to address misunderstandings about the newly formed group.
Call To Action is a group that was just made last Monday in response to the tweets, Howell said.
“It’s a student led initiative where the goal is to raise awareness about diversity and ask for more response from the University for the past year and a half of racism on campus,” Howell said.
We don’t feel the University has done an adequate job, she said.
“There have been some miscommunications that it’s exclusive, not open to faculty and non-colored students, but it is [open] to them,” Lewis said during the meeting. “And it’s not just about the tweets. We are closing the book on that and pushing more towards students … and making sure things are more inclusive.”
While Call To Action was inspired by Not In Our Town, Lewis and Howell stressed they are not the same thing.
“We are separate,” Lewis said during the meeting. “We need to take action. We feel like the fire died down [with Not In Our Town] so we need to speak up about our feelings … students feel that Not In Our Town didn’t work past the banner they put up.”
The overall reaction for Call To Action was they didn’t see a response from USG, Lewis said.
“We are looking for communication lines,” he said during the meeting. “We have seen some senators but it would need to be more about opening communication so we feel a partnership.”
President of USG Alex Solis is supportive of the group.
“It’s a great grassroots movement,” he said. “They are striving for great goals … USG plans to play a big part of their movement.”
Along with Call to Action, Vice President of Student Affairs Jill Carr came to USG to address any questions they had for her. Along with answering questions about updates on the Clean Air Policy and Greek Housing Project, Carr gave an update about the person behind the tweets that caused Call To Action to form.
“The individual has been identified,” she said during the meeting. “He is not a member of our community. We did send our information to the city prosecutor and they said it was not sufficient evidence to charge with a crime.”
USG will not be having a meeting next Monday but will be having one Monday, October 28th in room 308 of the Union at 7:30 p.m.
