The student government endorsed a new Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender anti-bullying action plan Thursday night.
Associated Students of Madison Shared Governance Committee Chair Kyle VandenLangenberg said the campus-wide action plan was developed and revised by students over the past few meetings to support the LGBT anti-bullying campaign.
The plan outlines actions, suggestions and agenda items that the Shared Governance Committee hopes the 14 ASM committees around campus will work on, VandenLangenberg said.
The action plan also outlines the group’s hope that the participating committees will include the LGBT anti-bullying campaign in their discussions as they do with other minority groups.
“This is a historic change for the way student Shared Governance operates on this campus,” VandenLangenberg said.
ASM Shared Governance Director Melissa Hanley said the action plan came as a result of a meeting among shared government leadership to discuss the committee’s semester plans.
The committee developed the anti-bullying action plan to support Dean of Student Lori Berquam’s campaign, as well as the national campaign against LGBT bullying, Hanley said.
“The development of this action plan has showed us just how eager students are to get involved in campus-wide issues,” Hanley said.
VandenLangenberg said the ASM committee chairs would continue work over winter break to encourage different student organizations on campus to adopt the anti-bullying action plan.
He added the campaign will also continue in the spring semester.
On Jan. 27, the LGBT Campus Center will be holding a presentation on its anti-bullying efforts featuring students offering personal accounts and statistics of bullying prevalence.
“The vote to pass this action plan shows just how much unprecedented student support this committee has. So many students who are active and involved on this campus really want to see a culture change,” Hanley said.
The meeting also featured a presentation by the University of Wisconsin Registrar’s Office teaching students about the new course guide feature of the UW student website.
Coordinators from the Student Advisory Board also held discussions with students on several other topics, including the effectiveness of the UW Student Center and the new UW iPhone application that launched earlier this week.
