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All-in-one resource office officially launches
RYAN LISTON @RyanListonUDK
Shuttling between the Sabatini Multicultural Resource Center and the Frank R. Burge Student Union will soon become routine for Mauricio Gomez Montoya as he manages a newly created one-man resource office. The office is located in Sabatini with plans for a satellite office in the Burge Union, which will open fully in April. Gomez Montoya is the director of the office and, currently, its only employee. Jayhawk Student One Stop is a resource office that was created earlier this month to connect students with campus and community resources when they are struggling and to help students navigate University policies. “The main responsibility is to provide support for students who are experiencing unforeseen challenges,” Gomez Montoya said. “I think some other responsibilities that sort of circumvent that are maintaining the budget of the office, creating a strategic plan, and creating intentional and purposeful partnerships with campus and community partners.” SOS was created after Jennifer Hamer, vice provost for the Office of Diversity and Equity, noticed that students often did not know which resources to turn to to alleviate their problems. “It’s really intended to support students that have these more challenging issues, like multiple issues coming at them all at once,” Hamer said, “So for example, issues with financial aid, issues with housing, food insecurity, maybe domestic violence. You know how all these things can sometimes happen at once for students, and it affects
Miranda Anaya/KANSAN Mauricio Gomez Montoya, director of Jayhawk SOS, is currently the only omployee of the new office that was put in place to help students facing crises find resources. their academic progress.” SOS is funded through the Office of Diversity and Equity and by a $145,000 two-year grant commitment from the Solon E. Summerfield Foundation, according to Carmen Wong, the grant’s executive director. Summerfield earned a bachelor’s degree from the University in 1899 and a bachelor of law degree in 1901 before serving on the board of trustees for KU Endowment, according to the foundation’s website. A budget has not been finalized for SOS, Gomez Montoya said in an email to the Kansan. “In talking with Dr. Hamer and others, it seemed like that could greatly enhance KU’s ability to help students to persist on campus
and achieve their academic goals,” Wong said. “So the foundation was willing to offer grant support to help make Student One Stop a reality.” Student retention is one of the areas the office hopes to improve through its services, Gomez Montoya said. After two years or four semesters, the freshman class of 2015 had an overall retention rate of 72.7 percent, according to an Office of Institutional Research and Planning report. White student retention was higher at 75.6 percent and underrepresented minority retention was lower at 62.2 percent. For the 2017 freshman class, overall retention at the end of last semester was at 93.5 percent, white student retention was 94.4
“It’s really intended to support students that have these more challenging issues, like multiple issues coming at them all at once.” Jennifer Hamer vice provost, Office of Diversity and Equity
percent and underrepresented minority retention was 90.6 percent. “[Students] were enrolling in their first year, first semester, first two/three years, and then they were not graduating,” Gomez Montoya said. “Then we also identified that some of these issues may have been very elaborate, very complicated, but some of them were very basic. We’ve had students that did not enroll
into a semester because of a parking ticket. We had students that have not enrolled because they didn’t understand a specific policy.” In addition to connecting students with relevant resources, Gomez Montoya said he also provides holistic advising and case management for the students. “The idea is to take into accunt the whole person,” Gomez Montoya said. “To
take into account that while the student may have an academic challenge that may also affect their finances, may also affect their health, may also affect their personal wellbeing.” Gomez Montoya said recognizing these overlapping challenges helps him develop specific plans for each student. “So really taking into account the whole person, and creating solutions and action plans that sort of encompass the wholeness of the person as opposed to just how to fix a specific issue, and that’s it,” Gomez Montoya said. “The idea is to help students sort of get stabilized and come up with a game plan of how to move forward.” Gomez Montoya also said SOS keeps students involved in the process of working through the issues they are facing. “We intend to work alongside the student, not on behalf of, because there are plenty of skills, problem solving and just in general help-seeking skills, that students develop as they go through this process,” Gomez Montoya said. In the first few weeks, Gomez Montoya said he has worked with around 10 students through SOS. Last semester, Hamer said she saw around 60 students who would have benefited from SOS. There are plans to add a graduate assistant and more full-time employees to the office, according to Gomez Montoya, although the exact number has not been established. “As of now, I’m it,” Gomez Montoya said.
Taylor Anderson contributed to the reporting of this story.
Debate team dominates in 6th national championship
KATIE BERNARD @KatieJ_Bernard Nine years after the squad’s last national title, the top-seeded KU debate team of Quaram Robinson and Will Katz became the University’s sixth national championship-winning debate team when they beat Georgetown in the final round of the National Debate Tournament on Monday night, according to the team’s Twitter account. “They’re hard working brilliant students,” Head Coach Scott Harris said. “They have an incredible ability to be coach-able and to adapt to evolving circumstances during a tournament.” Robinson and Katz entered the tournament with the best regular season record in Kansas debate history and as the num-
ber one overall seed. Their arguments this season focused on the impacts of medical misunderstandings of racial populations. Robinson was the first black woman to be ranked in the top five teams at the end of the regular season. She is the most successful debater in Kansas Debate history with four trips to NDT elimination rounds, reaching finals in two of those. “KU is one of the most successful debate programs over the last 60 years it is the most successful public college in policy debate and within that success she has been the most successful debater,” Harris said. The team began the final round at 8:50 Monday night after defeating Harvard in the semifinals. For Robinson, however, this
“They have an incredible ability to be coach-able and to adapt to evolving circumstances during a tournament.” Scott Harris Kansas Debate coach
Sarah Wright/KANSAN Quaram Robinson (pictured) and Will Katz are KU’s sixth national championship-winning debate team at the University. was not her first trip to the NDT finals. Robinson and partner Sion Bell took second in the tournament in 2016, losing wto Har-
vard. She is the first KU debater to compete in the NDT final round twice. Harris said that success would not be possible
without the “hundreds to thousands of hours” the team devotes to the activity and the eight graduate students who work with
the team. He said the grad students do a large amount of research, argument development, strategizing and emotional support for the team all while taking and teaching classes. Kansas Debate now has one more national championship than the men’s basketball team.