UNM Forum Addresses Recent Sexual Assaults

University of New Mexico students at a public forum Friday said the two on-campus physical attacks on women are a community issue that needs to be addressed.

That’s what university officials were aiming for when they hosted the lunchtime forum at the Student Union Building. Speakers included representatives from the UNM Women’s Resource Center, campus housing, the Agora Crisis Center, the Graduate and Professional Student Association and the Dean of Students’ Office.

“This is indeed a community issue. This is not a woman’s issue. This is everybody’s issue,” GPSA president Marisa Silva said. Silva’s comments were met with applause by about 40 students who attended. The number of attendees fluctuated throughout the forum.

“Student safety is an absolute priority for us. Everybody deserves to feel safe in their bodies and on their campus,” Silva said.

The forum, at which president Bob Frank briefly spoke, was organized after two separate incidents in which women were attacked on campus.

Frank said he wanted students to have a say on how to increase school safety, adding that UNM should be the best and safest place in New Mexico.

The first incident took place Jan. 27 while a woman who had been running at Johnson Field was leaving the area. The woman reported that two African-American men grabbed her, held her down and groped her. UNM police this week released sketches of the men but have made no arrests.

The second incident, on Monday, involved a woman who was walking near Castetter Hall around 9:30 p.m., after an evening class. The woman said a man groped her. He was described as white, between 5 feet 9 inches and 6 feet tall, with dark brown hair, and wearing glasses and a long-sleeved red sweater. He has also not been caught.

UNM has responded by sending a campuswide warning via text and email after the Monday incident, and by increasing security measures around campus.

At the forum Friday, student Sheryl Brooks lauded UNM’s response to the incidents but said she would like have seen someone from UNM police as well. Like many other students, Brooks said student safety is a job for everyone on campus.

“I would suggest that the professors, teachers and instructors here are brought in as a group as well,” Brooks said.
— This article appeared on page C1 of the Albuquerque Journal