The second open discussion student affairs meeting took place Tuesday in the Shawkey room in the student center.

Some issues covered at this meeting included representation, support from the university for student organizations in regard to their events and supplying funding for Sodexo to provide enough options for vegan students on campus.

The reason for holding these meetings is to give students the floor to speak about their experience among their peers and faculty. Once again, President Gilbert was in attendance and expressed how important these discussions are not only to him personally, but for the university as a whole. He said the dialogue of these meetings gives him and other administrators in attendance a unique perspective on the student experience directly from the source.

“I want you to know that you are loved by myself and this university,” President Gilbert said. “I encourage you to talk about hard-pressing topics that may be difficult to talk about in order to gain perspective and knowledge about the origins of why people feel the way they do about it.”

During the meeting prior to the one held Tuesday, one of the topics discussed was support from the university for student organizations other than Greek life on campus. That argument transferred to be the main topic of conversation for this meeting as well.

“I like the discussion of other student organizations that aren’t necessarily Greek life,” said David Crawley, senior education major and active member of the SGA. “While Greek life is important to many people, it does get a significant emphasis over others.”

Crawley was born in England and moved to the United States 10 years ago, where he attended high school in West Virginia. He is the first international student’s perspective at the event series.

“I feel there are issues in the mainstream culture of Marshall, as well as the INTO cultural experience here on campus, and how those experiences mesh together to make a collective experience here on campus,” Crawley said. “This event and the things we talked about help give perspective of both sides and how we can come together to make Marshall a better place as a whole.”

Autum Lee, a senior political science major, is responsible for starting the Native American club on campus. She said she has dealt with hardships of trying to get support for starting a new student organization first hand.

“Some students felt like they weren’t getting support from the intercultural office. I personally felt that way,” Lee said. “There needs to be more help for student organizations, so I decided the only way to get representation was to represent myself.”

“Most students want to come get an education and leave,” Lee said. “They don’t really want to take the time to care about things that are more pressing, things they don’t directly experience and generally don’t give an effort to try and understand.”

Lee also touched upon why she is so adamant on tackling issue of race and raising awareness of culture for future generations to come.

“I want my children to be able to hang out with someone who is black or Asian without feeling ashamed of who they are,” Lee said. “These topics aren’t easy to talk about. There are going to be some harsh things said, but only because of the harsh realities on this campus. Things need to change.”

The topic of support for LGBT students on campus also came up in the meeting and was stressed by Elise Gooding, a sophomore at Marshall University.

“College is a place where students generally begin to come out and express themselves,” said Gooding. “There needs to be a stronger support system for students on campus for them to talk to and relate to other members of the community. Marshall needs to step up and be that outlet of comfort for those students.”

Gooding also commented on the dialogue of this event and said, “It’s an important conversation that needs to be had, especially right now. It’s a really hot topic that makes us scared of each other. We don’t know how to have the conversation because, as humans who generally want to do good, we don’t want to hurt other people’s feelings, but how are we going to evolve as people or as a society if we are too scared to have the conversation.”

The next open discussion student affairs meeting is scheduled for Monday, Sept. 26 at 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. in the basement of the student center in room BE5.

Kyle Camacho can be contacted at [email protected].