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Student Association Vice President of Community and Government Affairs Noah Cordes and Vice President for Diversity and Inclusion Malique Lewis proposed the creation of a conference between police and students during SA’s meeting on Monday.

Cordes and Lewis said they want to cover inherent violence and racism in policing, the police hiring process, the movement of police between different jobs and police understanding the community they work within, both within the Department of Public Safety and the Syracuse Police Department.

“Our main goal and our main hope is that we can have more dialogues and conversations around these types of topics,” Lewis said. “A lot of students want to feel at home here. They have four years here and they want to feel safe.”

The two said they hope that students can voice their grievances through the event. They also hope to bring students and police to a greater mutual understanding.

“We want this to be projected to the larger community. We want this to be something super visible to make a city-wide impact,” Cordes said.

SA member Adia Santos said the initiative is a step in the right direction, but it may be too ambitious. She said there should be a slow buildup of trust between the community and the police officers.

“It’s an ideal scenario if we were in an ideal world,” Santos said. “It would be really productive to have a sit-down to discuss things that have happened historically between DPS and SPD before a broader discussion about building a relationship. Because I don’t think you can build a relationship that is built off of distrust.”

Santos said it would be productive for conversations to take place where people can acknowledge what they have done wrong in an effort to move forward.

Cordes said he appreciated the discussion among SA members.

“This is exactly the discourse we wanted today,” Cordes said. “All their points are completely understandable, but this is a work in progress. This is something we want to build upon and we want that collaboration.”

On Monday, David Bruen, SA’s president, and Darnelle Stinfort, SA’s vice president, along with a number of other members returned to attend the meeting after the conclusion of the National Association for Campus Activities conference held in Kansas City, Missouri.

Tim Johnson, SA’s adviser and SU’s associate director of student activities, received the Frank Harris Outstanding Student Government Advisor Award at the conference.

The association also passed a bill Monday that allocated $196 for the purchase of 200 stickers with QR codes. Bruen said that the codes will link to a website where students can vote in the upcoming student government spring elections. Chair of the Board of Elections Richard Kaufman IV stated that each sticker is to be placed on the 200 yard signs that were previously purchased.

SA confirmed two members to positions within the organization. Aldrick Cade was confirmed as a supreme court justice and will serve until he graduates from Syracuse University. Taylor Stover was confirmed as the commissioner of the board of elections by the assembly.

SA announced that the upcoming town hall would be postponed to early March and will focus on general organizational culture on campus and how SA can connect, collaborate and better represent students. It was previously scheduled to take place on Thursday, Feb. 24.

Published on February 22, 2022 at 12:37 am

Contact Danis: dwcammet@syr.edu