Graduate Student Senate chose to stand with Ohio University’s STAND Against Genocide at last night’s meeting.
GSS voted to put through a resolution that would request OU’s Ecology and Energy Conservation Committee to partner with STAND’s Bobcats for a Conflict-Free Campus to bring awareness and decrease dependence on technologies made with materials from violent areas, such as the Dominican Republic of the Congo.
“This issue lends itself to advocacy,” said Ellie Hamrick, president of Bobcats for a Conflict-Free Campus. “We are so connected to it by the products we use. We should all be concerned.”
The organization is hoping the university will release a public statement of its disapproval of the conflicted technology that is prevalent on the campus.
OU’s Honors Tutorial College published a statement, making it the first public college to do so.
OU is a shareholder in many of the companies that have been identified as producers of materials coming from conflict areas. Conflict-Free hopes to use these shareholder votes to bring attention to its cause.
To do so, the organization is working with Bryan Benchoff, vice president for Advancement and president and CEO of the Ohio University Foundation.
Such administrative development is uncommon for the organization, said Sarah Volpenhein, secretary and media coordinator for Bobcats for a Conflict-Free Campus.
“We haven’t had much success at the university level,” she said. “They haven’t been very receptive. It’s an image thing.”
GSS President Tracy Kelly said she hopes to improve the organization’s image with the collaboration between Conflict-Free and GSS.
“It’s important that we looked in to it and show support beyond a purely rhetorical level,” Kelly said.
sj950610@ohiou.edu
