CPUC discusses emergency response, sexual misconduct policy updates

The Council of the Princeton University Community discussed university policy updates with regard to emergency response and preparedness, sexual misconduct and student diversity on campus at its meeting on Monday.

Executive Director of Public Safety Paul Ominsky announced that sworn Department of Public Safety officers will soon have access to rifles in the event of emergency situations on campus.

Though the University had been discussing the policy for several months, the announcement comes soon after shootings at Texas Southern University in Houston, Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff and Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Ore.

In response to data from the “We Speak: Attitudes on Sexual Misconduct at Princeton” survey, Professor Deborah Nord addressed the issues surrounding sexual misconduct at Princeton.

The “We Speak” report, released last month, found that approximately one in three undergraduate women have experienced inappropriate sexual assault behavior.

The Council said administrators should consider the effects of bystander intervention and alcohol with regard to sexual assault. Nord said many respondents who experienced sexual assault indicated that alcohol was involved.

“I consider this data heartbreaking,” University President Christopher Eisgruber ’83 said. “It indicates an unacceptable level of sexual misconduct and violence that our students are experiencing on this campus.”

Eisgruber noted that the issue of sexual misconduct on campus is not an easy problem to solve. He said the problem is not University-specific and that many people today are comparing numbers at different campuses to see which are higher and lower.

“Regardless of how you come out on that, these numbers are too high on our campus and it is an issue on which we are going to make progress only if all of us own it as something where culture change needs to take place,” Eisgruber said.

There is a relatively even distribution with regard to the location where these incidents occur of sexual misconduct among undergraduates. Twenty-two percent of sexual assaults take place in the room of the victim, 39 percent in the room of the assailant and 33 percent in other locations, including campus eating clubs, according to the CPUC’s summary of the report.

The Council briefly discussed the monopoly of University eating clubs on campus-wide social engagement. Nord noted it is her personal view that the University faces a challenge of possessing “monolithic social life,” though she does not believe that the eating clubs are responsible for their current monopoly.

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Environmental Health and Safety director Robin Izzo discussed recent developments in emergency communication on campus and community training techniques, including classes that faculty members can attend to learn about sexual misconduct.

“Communication, of course, is always the most important thing during emergency management,” Izzo said.

She said the University’s telephone and email notification system is the primary means of informing everyone at once.

Izzo noted that last year, her office introduced a Princeton Telephone and Email Notification System portal that would allow people to subscribe to non-emergency notifications. Such notifications include early dismissals, delayed openings and closings. About 600 people are currently enrolled, she said.

Among the additions to the campus safety arsenal will be a new force mobile app that will allow students to contact DPS with a simple swipe to the right in the case of emergency situations, according to Izzo.

Vice Provost for Institutional Equity and Diversity Michele Minter gave an interim update about the CPUC task force on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. The update pertained to the implementation of recommendations by a task force charged with addressing campus climate issues last spring.

“There were a number of categories for the recommendations. All of these go together to make up our campus climate,” Minter explained."They include academic, co-curricular and extracurricular data and addressing bias, discrimination and harassment."

Minter said the University is implementing the task force’s roughly 30 recommendations from last year.

She said one recommendation is that the Fields Center should be refocused more tightly on serving students of color. Right now, many administrators and faculty use the space, making it hard for cultural groups to schedule events. Accordingly, cultural groups should receive priority for reserving the building.

Minter said the “Rights, Rules, Responsibility” policy was also updated to be more accessible and a new frequently asked questions section and infographic is available online to answer questions about how the policy works.

“With regard to academic offerings, the provost created a fund for cultural studies that elicited proposals for faculty members whose departments want to do more work in the area of identity and difference,” Minter added.

Furthermore, the task force on general education will launch this fall and will consider whether there should be a distribution requirement focused on identity and difference.