First, I would like to address an incident that has probably been on many of the students’ minds this week. On Tuesday, there were two separate religious demonstrations being held on campus. I have been approached by many students who were concerned about whether or not such demonstrations were allowed on campus. I presented these concerns to the administration and asked about policies for demonstrations on campus.
VCU is an institution that takes pride in being a public institution that permits free inquiry and expression. As a public institution, VCU is bound by the U.S. Constitution to provide a forum for members of the campus and community to express their opinions and beliefs. VCU rules and procedures reflect the university’s position on free expression and demonstrations. The university has some latitude to control the time, place and manner of these events, but those must be balanced and broadly interpreted. While not absolute, the university has directed demonstrations to the commons plaza and Shafer compass as “free speech zones” that generally allow for a demonstration to occur without impeding university activities or abridging the rights of the demonstrators. The demonstrations last week, although they reflect perspectives I do not agree with, met the standards for free expression and demonstrations. Administrators and University Police were on hand in both instances to ensure that these standards were upheld. I know many students were upset and disturbed by the demonstrations. Please ignore such demonstrations and do not waste your time.
Senate chair Jessica Lee, director of communications Peter Moody and Senator-elect Jason Murphy attended a Fan District Association meeting on parking Tuesday, April 3 at Binford Middle School to represent student concerns. This meeting is where the Fan District Association discusses the parking policies it promotes. Proposals discussed included introducing hourly rates for parking in the Fan. This money would then be used to fund a downtown circulator that runs through the fan from the West End (near Willow Lawn) to downtown Richmond. City Councilman Bill Pantele attended the meeting and seemed to dismiss VCU students’ concerns by implicitly endorsing suggestions that parking fines in the Fan should increase.
If you live in Councilman Pantele’s district, please contact him and let him know you do not support hourly parking fines in the Fan! E-mail him at Bill.Pantele@Richmondgov.com. Call his office’s voice mail at (804) 646-6531. We want to let councilman Pantele know that the voices of VCU Fan residents matter too. To learn more about the Fan District Association visit www.fandistrict.org.
There will be a VCU parking and transportation open forum on Thursday, April 12 at noon in Richmond Salon II. All students are encouraged to attend and voice your opinions about Parking at VCU! Free pizza and drinks are provided with valid VCU ID. Today at 4 p.m. in the Forum Room, Emma Minor from VCU parking and transportation will be presenting an update on the Escort Service reform. This will be a key time for you to come out listen to her update the Senate. All students are welcome!
Two bills were passed in the Student Senate last week. The first was the bill promotes playing the VCU student radio, WVCW, in Shafer Court Dining Center. This will allow students to have more control over the music they hear while dining. The second was the VCU Spirit Bill, which deals with the need for more student tickets for the CAA Tournament and Homecoming basketball games in the future. Feel free to e-mail me your concerns at sgapresident@vcu.edu. Thanks for reading!