Wednesday afternoon, Student Body President Jackie Gonzalez released an executive order that establishes temporary rules regarding administration of the Facebook group Wolfpack Students.
The order establishes a three-strike policy that would result in removal of members from the group if they violate certain guidelines when posting in the group, and also establishes a rule about removing posts that are not related to NC State.
According to the executive order, Wolfpack Students administrators will remove any posts “not relating to NC State University, its students or affairs.” Such removals will not necessarily result in a strike to the posting member, unless the new “community standards” are violated.
Policies that users are prohibited from violating under these temporary rules, and which will result in a strike to the infringing user, include Facebook policies, NC State University policies and Title IX.
Wolfpack Student members will also receive a strike for posting content that creates a “Hostile Environment Hazard,” which is defined in NC State Code 2.2.2 as any “unwelcome conduct” based on protected classes (including race, sexual orientation, gender identity and disability) that is “sufficiently severe or pervasive to deny or limit a student’s ability to participate in or benefit from NC State’s programs or activities.”
Similar behaviors that “create an intimidating, threatening or abusive educational environment” are also prohibited under the definition of “Hostile Environment Hazard” and will result in a strike.
In a statement accompanying the release of the executive order, Gonzalez, a senior studying political science, said that the group “is a resource for students on campus.”
“These guidelines are an effort to bring the page back as an NC State centered resource,” Gonzalez said.
In the statement, Gonzalez also said of Wolfpack Students that, up to now, she and other group administrators have received “a lot of concerns about its purpose and its current state.”
The guidelines are scheduled to sunset on Sept. 16, 2017, by which time, Gonzalez’s administration hopes to establish an administrative group, named the Wolfpack Students Advisory Board, that will establish and enforce Wolfpack Students guidelines. Members of this board will be appointed and overseen by the Student Body President and Student Body Vice President.
Student Body Vice President Mia Connell, a junior studying sociology, said that recruiting for the Wolfpack Students Advisory Board will occur in a similar manner to other Student Government recruiting, primarily through “open interests forms as well as heavy recruitment during Welcome Week and our Meet and Treat Event.” The Meet and Treat Event is scheduled for Aug. 21.
“We hope to have most departments and roles established within two weeks after this event,” Connell said.
