This week, in what may have been the longest senate meeting on record, GUSA held elections for Speaker, Vice-Speaker, Chair of the Intellectual Life Committee, filled a vacancy in the Finance and Applications Committee, and approved President Nate Tisa’s (SFS ’14) nominations for the executive cabinet. Following elections, the Senate approved the 2013-14 GUSA budget and ended the meeting by passing an initiative to strengthen GUSA’s relationship with Student Counseling and Psychiatric Services (CAPS).

Personnel changes, essentially
Former senator George Spyropoulos (COL ’14) was elected speaker of the senate and Sam Greco (SFS ’15) was elected vice speaker. Both had been heavily involved in GUSA and left behind their seats former positions for what Senator Cannon Warren (SFS ’14) described as “scheming” underclassmen to fill.

Senator Shweta Wahal (SFS ’16) took Spyropoulos’s place as chair of the Intellectual Life Committee and Senator William Bowers (COL’16) filled Greco’s spot on FinApp. Following the elections, the Senate affirmed Tisa and Vice President Adam Ramadan‘s (SFS ’14) nominations for the executive cabinet. (A full list of cabinet nominations can be found on GUSA’s facebook page.)

The Senate expressed enthusiasm over their selections, and, as usual, ended the proceedings very pleased with themselves.

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How many Public Service Announcement reports about sexual assaults do you think you’ve gotten in your e-mail inbox over the last year? If you actually check your Hoyamail account, that answer probably ranges somewhere from “Too many,” to “Way too many,” to “Oh my God, can this be for real?”

On Wednesday evening, GU Men Creating Change, United Feminists, and Sexual Assault Peer Educators held a vigil in Red Square in response to recent sexual assault incidents and in honor of Sexual Assault Awareness Month. Students including Jared Watkins (COL ’11), co-Chair of GU Men Creating Change, Marion Cory (COL ’10), a board member of United Feminists, and Amanda Kerrigan (SFS ’10) of Sexual Assault Peer Educators, conducted the vigil “for all sexual assaults that occur and remain unheard,” according to the event’s Facebook posting.

Although the Facebook posting confirmed 96 confirmed guests, a crowd of only about 15 people gathered in Red Square for the vigil last night. The crowd, which included a representative from Counseling and Psychiatric Services (CAPS), discussed plans to increase on-campus sexual assault awareness.

“It’s important that people are well informed about sexual assault even without all the PSAs,” Watkins said. “We’re here to provide resources on related organizations or to let anyone who’s interested to get involved.”

Some students, such as Kristin Mitchell (COL ’10), expressed concern about the lack of University action against sexual assault during the vigil.

“We get the emails, but they’re met with almost complete silence,” Mitchell said. “We don’t see anyone mobilizing, just people saying, ‘Look how scary! Don’t walk home alone!’ But what can we do to change?”

However, representatives from the coalition of groups did not seem discouraged by the small crowd that attended the vigil—they instead argued that it was a step in the right direction. Undeterred, the groups plan to hold similar events in Red Square in future months in order to provide information and raise awareness about sexual assault.

Watkins, who seemed particularly optimistic, added, “All great movements start with about this many people!”

Sex Positive Week 2010—a week geared toward helping students feel comfortable talking openly about sex and sexuality—is wrapping up. For its part, the Voice was pleased to see the University fund SPW for a second year in a row. “SPW is a much-needed antidote to the limited, overwhelmingly conservative dialogue that currently takes place on campus about sexuality,” wrote its editorial board.

How limited and overwhelmingly conservative? Well, recently, the Voice came across a curious treatise on the Georgetown University Counseling and Psychiatric Services website called the “Top Ten Reasons Why Dating is Better Than Hooking Up.”

Vox thinks this list—which more or less argues that STIs, emotional pain, pressure to go sexually farther than you’re comfortable with, pregnancy, pregnancy ending in abortion, unreciprocated feelings, and walks of shame are never risks in dating and always risks of hooking up—is a good example of the conservative (and sometimes ridiculous) platforms Georgetown has found itself capable of espousing in the past.

In an e-mail, Phil Meilman, the Director of CAPS, suggested that CAPS had not been aware of the existence of the page.

“It has been there for at least four years, if not longer, and we are unsure who authored it or posted it. However, we do not believe it is appropriate for our website and we are removing it.”

Thank goodness. Here’s a look at what one anonymous sage at CAPS once found appropriate to tell students of Georgetown (And for your reference, the full text of what was on the page is after the jump.):

• “4 ) With dating, the worst thing you will go home with is a doggie bag”

  That’s a reference to STIs. Apparently, it is physically impossible for people who are dating to transmit STIs, lie about having STIs, assume they don’t need to get tested for STIs and transmit them, or not know they have STIs. Or engage in any behavior that would make any of those things possible.

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