Written by: Questen Inghram
A scheduled meeting between RAs and university administration on Thursday, April 13 featured President Sabah Randhawa and Leonard Jones, director of University Residences. Missing, were any RAs.
Instead, four members of the Associated Students Board of Directors presented a letter signed by 62 current and former RAs saying they would not be attending the meeting. The letter instead invited university administrators to a forum that will be hosted by the RAs on Monday, April 17.
Wayne Rocque, vice president of student life, handed the letter to President Randhawa.
“The [AS] Board is here on behalf of the RAs; the RAs have made a decision not to attend,” Rocque said to Randhawa.
Randhawa did not say whether he would attend the forum on Monday.
“I think the important thing is to have a dialogue, whatever form it happens to be,” Randhawa said to those present. “Truly the biggest concern to me is the breakdown in communication.”
In an email response to concerns raised by resident advisers, Jones had invited all RAs to attend a meeting of the RA Advisory Committee on Thursday, April 13.
The letter from RAs questioned the effectiveness of the meeting.
“We have exhausted all resources provided to us by Residence Life, as well as this university,” the letter said. “We also found the last RA Advisory Committee to be ineffective and containing personal anecdotes that did not provide direct answers to our questions.”
The meeting started later than the scheduled time of 7 p.m., as university administrators were waiting for more people. The meeting lasted less than 15 minutes, and everyone had left by 7:30 p.m.
As well as Randhawa and Jones, Eileen Coughlin, vice president of Enrollment and Student Services, and Paul Cocke, director of Communications and Marketing, were present.
However, not even the members of the advisory committee attended the meeting.
