By SHANNON O. WELLS
The Feb. 15 Senate Council meeting included encouraging campus safety-related news regarding the functionality of door-opening “accessibility” buttons as well as greater accessibility of Automated External Defibrillators (AEDs).
During his presentation, Student Government Board President Ryan Young said Sara Fitzpatrick, SGB vice president of Initiatives, worked with Pitt Facilities Management to make sure accessibility buttons around campus are regularly checked and operate correctly.
“We’re happy to report that several buttons that we identified as broken have been fixed, and that’s really essential for people with disabilities to be able to actually get into the buildings around campus,” he said of the square metal buttons, stamped with a blue wheelchair/disability symbol, that trigger automatic-opening doors around campus.
Also, Sarah Mayer, SGB vice president of policy, met with the Department of Environmental Health and Safety to discuss the lack of AEDs around campus. The department recently ordered 30 AEDs, which will be installed soon in residence halls and campus buildings that lack them. Each AED includes a Rescue Ready CPR kit that provides necessary supplies to render first aid. The new locations will be added to the AED map on the Department of Environmental Health and Safety website.
The Senate’s Campus Utilization, Planning and Safety committee is taking initiative to order additional AEDs, and Young said SGB hopes to “collaborate in the future on Stop the Bleed kits and more new AED boxes to make our campus safer, especially in medical emergencies.”
Dave DeJong, senior vice chancellor for business and operations, thanked Young and his SGB colleagues for their collaboration on “everything you’re doing (toward) making the campus more user friendly. (We) really appreciate the heads up we got on the accessibility buttons,” he said. “Not only are they fixed, but now we are having our police and our guards routinely hit them, so we will avoid those sort of issues moving forward.”
In other safety-related matters, DeJong added that interactive QR codes posted around campus are being updated so if anyone sees a problem, “like in a bathroom or a mess in a hallway or something,” you can scan the nearest QR code with a smartphone, which sends a report straight to Facilities Management. “They will be able to respond very quickly. So, we’ll have all of your eyes and ears activated to help us with that, but (we) really appreciate your partnership.”
Young responded by thanking DeJong “for working with us on that, and we’re really excited to hear that (doors) are being checked regularly.”
Campus surveys
In other Senate Council news, interim Provost Joe McCarthy, on behalf of Chancellor Joan Gabel, who was unable to attend the meeting, shared updates on two surveys, one involving sexual misconduct/assault and awareness, and another ongoing survey based on the undergraduate experience.
McCarthy stressed the importance of the Higher Education Sexual Misconduct and Awareness/Campus Climate survey for Pitt to continue efforts in preventing and responding to sexual misconduct and assault, “as this is a really critical issue that Pitt and other institutions of higher education are facing.
“So I encourage folks to give community feedback as this will help guide future changes and enhancements to our efforts on prevention and response,” he added.
The Student Experience in the Research University (SERU) survey, McCarthy explained, is undertaken biannually with undergraduate and graduate student surveys alternating years. This year’s survey asks undergraduates to provide confidential feedback about their experiences at Pitt.
McCarthy said the survey is important to Pitt because it’s implemented at several other research universities. “This helps us to benchmark against our peers to find ways to gauge our progress as well as inform future changes to our operations and help in the strategic planning in areas like campus climate, student mental health research opportunities, and sense of belonging.”
Awards and initiatives
McCarthy went on to highlight Pitt leaders receiving prestigious awards for community engagement efforts from the Campus Community Compact, including Jamie Ducar, assistant vice chancellor in the Office of Engagement and Community affairs, and Khirsten L. Scott, assistant professor of education and director of the Western Pennsylvania Writing Project
He also shared news about First at Pitt, a mentoring initiative from the Office of the Provost’s Student Success Team designed to identify, support and celebrate Pitt’s first-generation students, faculty, staff and alumni.
The soft launch of the Pitt Commons mentoring/networking app has brought 116 mentors on board, 78 percent of whom are alumni, along with “nearly 100 student mentees,” McCarthy said, encouraging both those who want to mentor first-generation students as well as Pitt students “who identify as first in their family to attend college to take advantage of that new platform.”
Shannon O. Wells is a writer for the University Times. Reach him at shannonw@pitt.edu.
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