Oswego State President Deborah Stanley held her last town hall meeting of the semester discussing issues and topics with faculty, staff and students on April 6, in the Marano Campus Center Auditorium.
A continuing topic brought up by Stanley was to make Oswego State, along with the rest of SUNY campuses, sanctuary campuses for undocumented individuals, whether they are staff, faculty or students.
Stanley said she has had multiple conversations with Oswego State Police Chief John Rossi after New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman came out with his updated legal guidance that campuses must comply with law, but only if there is warrant for such action.
“We don’t have to give information,” Stanley said. “We don’t have to allow people to talk to individuals. We don’t have to post [U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement] or any other law enforcement on campus if there is not a warrant associated with it and that is pretty much, as Chief Rossi has informed me, how we always operate.”
University Police is on board, and Rossi said there was not a big change for the department because of Schneiderman’s resolution, it was just down in writing. Officers and supervisors signed off on the procedure within 24 hours of it is release by Schneiderman.
“It’s really not going to have an effect on us,” Rossi said.
Stanley said she was concerned of being informed of a change made in the future, but Rossi reassured her the campus would be notified.
Eusebio Omar van Reenen, an international student, informed Stanley that over the weekend an affirmation of support would be given for the safety of undocumented and international students, and a resolution to request the Board of Trustees to take further steps to support and protect all students at SUNYs that are pursuing higher educations, regardless of culture, race and religion.
“We would like to urge all SUNYs to adopt policies that don’t require you to comply with I.C.E if there is not a warrant and to continue the admissions of international students from Iraq, Libya, all those that are on the six list of the recent executive order,” van Reenen said.
Stanley said she would like to look over the policies and discuss them with SUNY Council to see what can be done.
“We know that we are very concerned about international students, who may be intending to come to our institution, especially next fall,” Stanley said.
Stanley said administration knows and accepts that Oswego State must comply with the law. “If there are other ways that we can make our campus accessible, where we can make our campus secure and make individuals feel you are safe, we would be happy to do that,” Stanley said.
The topic of diversity and inclusion were also brought up by van Reenen. Stanley said Oswego State is in the process of hiring a chief diversity and inclusion officer.
Enrollment was another topic and Stanley said the college received the highest number of applications to date by 65.
Other topics brought up during the meeting included candidates for residential assistant positions being informed if they received the job prior to room selections in order to make arrangements, the lack of available space for clubs to use the academic buildings, and sustainability on campus.
