Acorn

Issue date: 4/11/08 Section: News

Media Credit: Joanna Whitney Kolmar is chair of the Sexual Harrassment Committee and is partially responsible for the revisions of the new human rights policy.

When students marched to President Bob Weisbuch's office last December demanding attention be paid to issues of human rights and discrimination, Drew University's human rights policy-or lack thereof-became a hot topic among many students.

"It was something we were already thinking about," Special Assistant for Diversity Erec Smith said. "That march definitely put it at the front of our minds."

Smith is one of numerous faculty and administrators who have been working on revisions to Drew's human rights policy for about two years.

The draft of the policy currently being worked on plans to use the current sexual harassment committee as a way of following through on human rights violations. This adjustment means the committee will address not only complaints of sexual harassment but any human rights issues on campus, through a process guided by the victim with the advice from committee members.

Associate Dean for Curriculum and Faculty Development and Co-Chair of the Sexual Harassment Committee Wendy Kolmar spearheaded the campaign to change the policy with Sexual Harassment Committee Co-Chair Virginia Samuel. "Unlike the sexual harassment policy, where we have a policy and then a process, the human rights policy just had a statement," Kolmar said.

The entry about human rights on page 45 of Daniel's Dictionary is only five sentences long. Statements about human rights express Drew's intolerance for discrimination and harassment, but they do not give students information about how to register a complaint or prosecute an offense, Kolmar said.

"The goal [of the new policy] is to not have people going to eight different places [for help] and feeling that nothing has happened," Kolmar said.

Kolmar met with students from all three schools nearly two years ago to discuss the need to incorporate diversity into both curricular and extracurricular life at Drew and draft a policy.

While drafting the policy with Samuel, Kolmar said she met with former Dean of Campus Life and Student Affairs Edye Lawler, current Dean of Campus Life and Student Affairs Dawn Williams, Associate Dean of Campus Life and Student Affairs Frank Merckx, Smith, Provost Pamela Gunter-Smith, Vice President of Administration and University Relations Peggy Howard, and "other faculty who had been involved in the diversity committee."

Continued...

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