As students return from Fall Break, the Campus Life Council (CLC) reconvened Monday afternoon to discuss on-campus diversity, gender relations and office hours.
Coccia said he joined student body vice president Nancy Joyce and student body chief of staff Juan Rangel to meet with representatives from the Office of Student Affairs to discuss topics including diversity in leadership positions.
The Council has considered the need to diversify leadership in the past, Coccia said. "This is something that has been recommended since ... 1992, [1993], [1994] ... that was a topic of discussion before we got there, so I think that [the Council's suggestion] helped reinforce that point," Coccia said. Coccia said his team also suggested all classrooms and residence halls on campus include a statement of inclusion.
On the topic of gender relations, Coccia said the group also encouraged the Office of Student Affairs to "get the conversation started" on what it means to be a transgender student at Notre Dame, specifically what it means when it comes to student housing. He said PrismND, the recently created student organization for LGBTQ student issues, will be examining this topic as well.
Another topic that was discussed during the meeting was students' use of office hours. Specifically, the Council discussed the fact that students often don't use office hours very much, if at all.
Coccia said the Council will focus on these and other issues as the school year progresses.
"We'll focus, for the rest of the semester, on the intermediate steps.... to either help get us more information, or to start addressing some of the issues we've been talking about," he said. "We've been asking so many questions... [and] we want to start figuring out what the solutions are."
Contact Thomas Hughes at thughes2@nd.edu
