Oregon university student governments, graduate unions form student safety coalition

By Meerah Powell (OPB)
Feb. 18, 2022 10:57 p.m.

The coalition is hoping to address concerns about safety that have cropped up during the pandemic.

The Oregon Student Association announced this week the formation of a new coalition with university graduate employee unions and student governments across the state looking to address student safety concerns related to the ongoing pandemic.

Portland State University Campus

Portland State University Campus

Hanin Najjar / OPB

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The coalition includes OSA, graduate employee unions with the University of Oregon, Oregon State University, Portland State University and Oregon Health and Science University and student governments with Western Oregon University, UO and PSU.

“The coalition was formed out of a shared concern about student safety during the wave of Omicron cases that cropped up near the end of 2021 going into the start of 2022,” OSA interim executive director Evelyn Kocher said. “The goal of the coalition is essentially to provide a shared space to talk about administrations’ shortcomings when it comes to safeguarding student safety.”

Kocher told OPB the coalition will gather monthly to check in on how students are faring at institutions across Oregon. She acknowledged that although the coalition has formed as cases of the omicron variant have started to decrease in Oregon, the group wants to focus on broader issues such as diversifying the ways classes are offered — since many college classes throughout the state stayed in-person, even as omicron cases rose.

OPB reached out to Oregon’s largest public universities as omicron cases were rising to inquire about data on classes shifting online and COVID-19-related absences in in-person classes. University officials were not able to provide those numbers because the universities were not collecting them.

According to a statement from the coalition, the group has four focuses: increasing remote class instruction options, increasing protections for classes that must be in-person, providing transparent data on COVID-19 cases on campuses and on COVID-19 policy changes, and engaging students and employees in pandemic-related decision-making processes.

“We believe that these items are the bare minimum that we expect from university administrations to help keep students safe and not have to sacrifice their physical well-being to obtain an education,” the coalition wrote.

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