Originally planned to be a town hall, ASUO’s “couch talk” — a less formal alternative — has shifted its focus from the University of Oregon Police Department’s Community Service Officers to the wider topic of campus safety. ASUO plans to hold the couch talk at some point during winter term for students to discuss the campus safety issues they’re most concerned about.
“There are a lot of students on this campus that have issues that they feel like need to be addressed that relate to campus safety that don’t connect to CSOs,” ASUO President Isaiah Boyd said.
He said it would be a disservice to students to focus solely on CSOs when there are other campus safety issues. “Students might be concerned about features of the campus where lighting is terrible,” he said, “or some students might say, ‘I don’t feel comfortable seeing a police officer with a gun.’”
Boyd said he thought town halls offered a limited amount of time for speakers and audience members. “There is not really a natural conversation, it’s more of a ‘we are just going to give you all of the information that we know, and you have to take it and do with it as you please,” he said.
The couch talk is meant to create an interactive space for students to feel their ideas are being listened to, Boyd said. He hopes the talk will provide a framework for students to have their questions heard.
ASUO Communications Director Sam Simonett said the structure of the talk will have a traditional questions and answers section that will shift into a more candid conversation.
“We’ll be moderating to make sure the conversations remain on track and productive, but the central goal of the couch talk format is to make a space for students to express their concerns and feel heard,” Simonett said.
Simonett said this and future couch talks will be in conjunction with different departments on campus. “There will likely be messaging within their department as well, to faculty and students alike,” Simonett said.
ASUO will release a survey during the winter term to determine what topics they want to discuss during the couch talk. “If we get a lot of feedback around UOPD specifically, it’ll be a UOPD lens” Boyd said. “You have concerns about UOPD? We are going to get them into that space so you can talk to them.”
He said the survey will examine campus safety from a variety of different angles — including UOPD. “The theme I’m trying to push forward is UOPD isn’t the end all be all solution for safety on campus,” he said.
Boyd said ASUO is working with groups like the Multicultural Center, the Black Cultural Center, the Ethnic Studies Department, the Dean of Students and the University Health Center.
“If students relate or express concerns around mental health, I want to make sure that we get a counselor from the University Health Center to say, ‘Hey, look, your students are telling you this is an issue,’’’ he said.
While ASUO is communicating with groups for the couch talk, they aren’t a big part of the planning process. “Right now all of our partners are kind of on the outside of the project,” Boyd said. “We want it to be very student driven and student built so haven’t let them dive deep into the planning phase.”
Following UOPD Chief Matthew Carmichael’s departure from UO, Captain Jason Wade said he plans on attending the couch talk as acting chief and is eager to hear student feedback. UOPD also has an online feedback form for students to share their thoughts about CSOs.
Boyd said he hopes to have the couch talk in the middle of winter term before students become too preoccupied with finals.
“I want to give our team enough time to where after the couch talk we can then reassess and coordinate another event or smaller events or even just take the data we get from the couch talk and take it to administrators,” he said.
Simonett said students should be on the lookout for posts on the ASUO Instagram page as well as future ASUO newsletters containing information on the couch talk.
