By Kyle Kern Staff writer
On April 11, students, staff and faculty gathered by the Arthur Plaza Fountain by the Degenstein Campus Center. The Center for Intercultural and Community Engagement hosted a talk on the reported incidents around campus that have left the various communities on campus feeling unsafe.
Director of the Center for Intercultural and Community Engagement, Dena Salerno, opened the event with remarks of celebration of the 49th anniversary of the Fair Housing Act that extended the Civil Rights Act by not allowing individuals to discriminate based on sex, race and ethnic origin.
However, the meeting was not to discuss the anniversary, but to outline the recent reported incidents on campus that have caused many to feel unsafe. Salerno brought up that these groups of individuals are not free from discrimination on our campus, and it is important to realize the events that are happening in their lives on a daily, weekly, monthly and yearly basis.
Chaplain Scott Kershner thanked the students, faculty and staff for being in attendance even for such a grim reason. He challenged those in attendance who regard themselves as allies to focus upon their actions.
Many staff and faculty from different departments joined the event by reading the incidents reported to Public Safety regarding safety and vandalism toward minority groups on campus.
The incident reports read ranged from swastikas etched in the bathroom or chalked on the sidewalk, to discriminatory remarks etched in bathrooms and chalked on Kurtz Lane regarding the LGBTQ+ community, to yelling racial and ethnic slurs to various students in front of buildings on campus.
Salerno told everyone to let the reading of the incidents sink in. She expressed sadness and explained that she was angry at the incidents that had occurred over the last semester and the current semester.
Salerno said that incidents like these on campus actually happen more often than we know because not everyone reports their incident to Public Safety. She used this as a call to action for staff and faculty to help structure an environment that is safe and to the students to help support one another.
Kershner emphasized that that the responsibility of making a safe campus environment is on the campus community.
Kerhsner said that he thinks we can create a different culture and campus community that does not make any group feel uncomfortable. He ended with words of advice to those in attendance that he hoped would be heeded.
Kershner believes that the strength of our resolve and the creativity of our actions can hopefully move Susquehanna forward and shift the campus culture. “When we come together as a community of safety, we move forward together,” he said.
Eyana Walker, a junior strategic communications public relations major, said, “If everyone in the community does not feel safe, we are not a community… It is my responsibility as a Susquehanna student to make this campus a community that is safe.”