Members of the Associated Students of Oregon State University have passed a resolution asking to make changes to the Survivor Advocacy and Resource Center. 

While not a binding piece of legislation, the SARC resolution, called the Survivor Care Reform Resolution, is a list of demands sent to various people across campus in administrative positions as well as to local news outlets. 

According to Matteo Paola, member of the ASOSU House of Representatives, the aim of the resolution is to establish SARC as the focal point of survivor care initiatives. Paola said ASOSU hopes to do this through increased funding and staffing within the organization to improve survivor care services, as well as by centralizing the services SARC provides.

Included in this resolution is a recommendation to expand SARC staffing since SARC currently only has two employees. The SARC resolution recommends the staff be increased to at least nine people, including a Sexual Health Coordinator, three Survivor Advocates and a Crisis Counselor. 

“As it currently is, SARC is not like a center, you go there and you might be referred somewhere else,” Paola said. “Referring students to other services or other places where they have to set up meetings and deal with all that can make it difficult for people to get the help that they need.”

Unanimously passed by the ASOSU Congress, the SARC resolution asks for signatures from OSU students, faculty and staff, as well as from citizens of Corvallis, Ore.

“There was no real pushback against [it],” Paola said. “I think pretty much everyone is generally in favor of it. I’ve not heard anyone, student-wise or faculty, outside of the administration, that had any problems with anything we’re asking for.”

According to Paola, the administration, which consists of Student Health Services staff among others, has been the only source of pushback for the resolution.

“The back and forth between students and administration is so unproductive and immature,” said Kate Rockey, the ASOSU women and gender advocacy coordinator. “I’m doing my job. I’m just advocating for students. And it seems like all the barriers that are being put in place are like, why?”

One of those sources of “pushback,” according to Rockey, is Dan Larson, the vice provost for Student Affairs.

Larson said he appreciated and shared the student interest in expanding the impacts of OSU’s interpersonal and gender-based violence prevention, response and support programs and services. 

“It is my hope that, in advocating for greater impact, we do not at the same time erode the confidence in the support that is currently available to survivors,” Larson said.

Rockey said she wants to emphasize that both the administration and ASOSU still have the same shared goals.

“We just want to move forward so desperately with these efforts in any way we can, we want to be heard,” Rockey said. “We want to be communicated with, we want collaboration with administration who are the ones who will be making these changes.”

According to ASOSU Director of Programming Emile De Pooter, the demands of the resolution would essentially allow SARC to better address the needs of the community, not only through the ways mentioned above but also through increased student representation.

“I think it is essential that our student government helps support this initiative and works with the administration to get those changes implemented,” De Pooter said.