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Marisa Silva, president of the Graduate and Professional Student Association, said it’s difficult for a university to tighten its security while tightening its budget.
Silva said UNM’s budget makes it hard for the University to organize safety initiatives. She said the budget recommendation the Legislative Finance Committee is considering will put UNM at a 16 percent budget shortfall and will affect the University’s safety operations.
“As long as we’re scrambling to keep the lights on, it’s going to be difficult to fund other initiatives for safety of students,” she said. “Safety is not a luxury — it is something that we can demand.”
On Jan. 27, two men allegedly grabbed a female UNM student while she was jogging at Johnson Field, held her down and groped her under her clothes. On Feb. 4, a man allegedly groped a female UNM student over her clothes outside Castetter Hall.
Silva attended Friday’s forum held to address the cases of on-campus sexual assault during the past two weeks. Representatives from various University bodies, such as Residence Life, the office of the dean of students and the Women’s Resource Center, suggested and asked for possible solutions to the problem.
Silva asked students to contact their legislators to urge them to provide more funding for UNM.
In the wake of the first groping incident, officials said the University increased police presence on campus and allocated more money to security efforts, but no one could say how many more officers were on patrol at a given time or how much money was put into security.
Prior to the reports of groping, there were three UNMPD officers on patrol per shift. But UNMPD Chief Kathy Guimond was unable to provide details on how much staffing had been increased, if shifts had been changed and exactly what additional steps had been taken, citing tactical considerations.
“(The additional staffing) varies by the day of the week and by the shift of the day,” Guimond said in a phone interview Friday afternoon.
UNM President Bob Frank also said UNM took money out of its allotted budget to fund this increase in campus security, but he was unable to provide exact numbers.
UNM is in the middle of its budgeting process for the next fiscal year. This includes allocating money to all departments and programs while dealing with a $60 million cut in the University’s budget the past three years.
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Even so, Frank said he is confident UNM will be able to respond effectively to the calls for improved campus safety following the sexual assaults.
“We’re a tightly knit community,” Frank said. “This affects us all and all of us can help.”
Audience members at Friday’s forum had questions for UNMPD, but no UNMPD representatives were present at the event.
During a phone interview Saturday, UNMPD Public Information Officer Lt. Robert Haarhues said the police were not asked to attend the forum.
“We weren’t invited and we weren’t there to set it up,” he said.
UNM Director of Communication Dianne Anderson said she spoke with Guimond, who told her UNMPD officers were busy patrolling the campus.
“(Guimond) feels like it’s important that she has her officers out there patrolling the campus all the time. They just want to be the eyes and ears out there constantly,” she said.
During the event, audience members repeatedly suggested the University focus more on police initiatives to prevent sexual assaults on campus.
WRC interim director Summer Little said the WRC is working on various programs to counter sexual assault on campus.
“We are currently in negotiations with the University in the development of a new sexual assault response team,” she said. “We have the new gender-violence prevention program, which was funded by our Student Fee Review Board. We also provide counseling and crisis intervention.”
Little said the WRC is also developing a new “bystander intervention” program with the Rape Crisis Center of Central New Mexico, which will educate students on how to prevent and deal with sexual assault. She said the program will enter its pilot phase later this spring, and will be expanded during the fall semester.
Little also advised students, especially women, to take self-defense classes, and for men to understand the consequences associated with using force to have sex.
“If you’re really tempted to use force to have sex, remember, don’t do it,” she said. “It’s rape, it’s a crime, it will land you to jail and get you expelled.”
Dean of students student conduct officer Robert Burford said the University educates students about campus safety and sexual assaults during new student orientation. He said students take part in an activity called “Choose Your Direction” during orientation to learn about date rape.
Burford also said the office of the dean of students does presentations about campus safety with UNMPD in freshmen classes.
He said the office also holds campus safety walks every semester, in which participants walk around campus at night to look for poorly lit spots and assess campus safety.
“We have lots of different things here, and we still need to continue to educate the students to make sure they’re aware,” he said.
