In the wake of the devastating earthquake in Haiti, the University Senate discussed the ways Syracuse University is and would be a part of the relief and reconstruction effort there in the first meeting of the semester Wednesday in Maxwell Auditorium.

Sylvia Langford, the associate vice president of student affairs, prompted a discussion of the ongoing student and faculty aid and awareness projects. She was representing Tom Wolfe, the dean of student affairs, who could not make it to the meeting.

‘We will support our students affected by Haiti. We’ve all been touched by the tragedy, but none more so than the students who’ve lost family,’ Langford said. ‘SU has a big heart and will do everything it can do with its resources to help people in Haiti.’

Student organizations are collaborating across campus, combining manpower and resources, to best aid the suffering in Haiti and raise awareness, Langford said.

The combined efforts are being led by the director of student activities, David Sargalski, Student Association President Jon Barnhart, President of the Haitian American Student Association Cathiana Vital and Eddie Banks-Crosson, the director of fraternity and sorority affairs. One of their first objectives is setting up a Web site, Langford said.

These organizations are also planning their own events: SA plans on holding a town hall-style meeting, HASA will host a benefit dinner, Phi Beta Sigma fraternity is co-sponsoring a vigil Thursday and SU Ambulance has collected $500 for Partners in Heath, an organization providing relief in Haiti, Langford said.

SU’s Habitat for Humanity is waiting for permission from SU’s administration to put students on the ground in Haiti. The current devastating conditions in Haiti prevent Habitat from sending SU students, Langford said.

‘This relief effort will be massive and long lasting. There have been (alternative) Spring Break trips proposed,’ she said. ‘As soon as there is infrastructure in place in Haiti then students will be allowed. Right now, Haiti does not have the infrastructure to handle the students,’ Langford said.

While infrastructure is being built and stabilized, the best way to help out is to make donations to reliable organizations because they can use those resources most effectively, Langford said.

Langford encouraged the faculty to send students interested in getting involved to Sargalski. She also encouraged students to turn to the list of organizations sent out in Chancellor Nancy Cantor’s e-mail for donations, Langford said.

‘When people are in need there are always scammers,’ she said. ‘Students are always so very trusting. I’m not doing a personal plug for Partners in Health or Red Cross, but I know they know what to do with the money.’

Barbara Kwasnik, chair of the Curricula Committee, said one smaller organization on the list, the Miami Patient Women’s Association, has the potential for a deeper relationship with SU. The women’s association deals with issues with women from Miami but is working on the ground in Haiti.

Down the line, SU should establish its own a long-term aid organization in Haiti, Kwasnik said.

‘It’s a matter of making life visibly better,’ Kwasnik said. ‘There are so many ways to do that, even if it’s sending movies so they’re not just hand to mouth.’

When infrastructure is established enough to permit SU students into Haiti, Cantor proposed that the relief effort be modeled after the efforts SU led in post-Katrina New Orleans.

‘We were on the ground in New Orleans within months,’ Cantor said. ‘But it had organized infrastructure to plug into.’

Architecture students have been active in discussing their potential role in creating sustainable and stronger infrastructure. Environmental engineers and architects can research ways to rebuild durable infrastructure with Haiti’s modest resources. An elaborate group of SU architecture students were involved with post-Katrina relief, Cantor said.

SU is also reaching out to the extensive Haitian immigrant community in Central New York, which served as a refugee resettlement area, Cantor said.

‘Through interfaith works, faculty have worked with local community groups to begin ways to help,’ Cantor said.

Horace Campbell, professor of African-American studies, said he thinks a serious dialogue must parallel the aid efforts.

‘Apart from raising donations and sending supplies, the other issue is how do we educate (people about) the relationship between the United States and Haiti,’ Campbell said.

Campbell criticized the national endorsement of sending aid along with military force.

‘If universities do not step forward to stop this kind of rhetoric, who will?’ Campbell said. ‘There must be massive education about why this happened to the people of Haiti.’

In response to Campbell’s call for open discussions, Phi Beta Sigma is hosting the first of a series of open forums next week, said Eugene Herring, a member of Phi Beta Sigma present at the USen meeting and a senior international relations major. The forum will approach the subject of Haiti from a historical and political perspective and bring in experts.

Other business included:

The Subcommittee on Sexual Harassment and Abuse of Power is reviewing feedback offered by SU faculty regarding the university’s sexual harassment policy. A new policy is currently under revision.

A motion passed to change the name of a 100-level philosophy class from Modern Moral Dilemmas to Ethics and Contemporary Problems.

Robert Rubinstein, chair of the Academic Freedom, Tenure and Professional Ethics committees, brought up a concern over the need for two graphic design programs, one in the S.I. Newhouse School of Communications, the other in the College of Visual and Performing Arts. Rosanna Grassi, associate dean at Newhouse, settled the discussion by pointing to the different approaches the two schools take in preparing students for their respective fields.

rastrum@syr.edu

Published on January 20, 2010 at 12:00 pm