<\/p>\n
Student Senator Bobby Escobar speaks to Florida Legislators and Orange County Residents advocating for campus safety legislation at the\u00a0Orange County Legislative Delegation Public Meeting on Oct. 21.<\/p>\n
Courtesy of the Orange County Government of Florida<\/p>\n
UCF’s\u00a0Senate Government Affairs and Policy Committee spoke at the\u00a0Orange County Legislative Delegation meeting<\/a>\u00a0on Oct. 21 to highlight students’ campus safety concerns for Florida legislators.\u00a0<\/p>\n Student Sen. Bobby Escobar, a member of the Government Affairs and Policy Committee, delivered a speech advocating for policies to improve campus safety.<\/p>\n This comes after ongoing results from GAP’s annual\u00a0Legislative Priority Survey showed the UCF student body’s unease with campus safety.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe UCF Student Government urges you to support, introduce and pass legislation that addresses student concerns of public safety on university and college campuses,\u201d Escobar said in the speech.<\/p>\n Student Sen. Juan Varela, the committee chair, explained what the legislative objectives of campus safety involve for the committee.<\/p>\n \u201cIt just entails any sort of measures or policies that make students feel like they’re safer and accepted on campus,\u201d Varela said. \u201cWhat we do is we watch and observe for Florida Legislature bills in the House or Senate that further our goal of campus safety, and if one appears that either harms it or benefits it, we will advocate for or against it, respectively.\u201d<\/p>\n Currently, the GAP has two bills flagged in Florida\u2019s House of Representatives and Senate.<\/p>\n These three bills include House Bill 133<\/a>,\u00a0which would reduce the minimum age to purchase or transfer firearms,\u00a0and Senate Bill 176<\/a>,\u00a0which would require state universities and the Florida College System to administer specific safety policies and procedures relating to safety.<\/p>\n The Legislative Priority Survey features different policy areas for UCF students to rank individually on a scale of 1-5 according to how important it is for the Student Government to advocate for them on campus and in state policy.\u00a0<\/p>\n Campus safety as a campus-specific policy area currently ranks around 4.7 out of 5, according to Varela. It is a top priority for UCF students and is represented in the survey by issues such as weapons and self-defense policy, and policing.<\/p>\n The anonymous survey also features an open-response section for students to add further comments about their decisions.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe should not have to be afraid to go to class because we could be shot and killed on campus,\u201d one student said.<\/p>\n \u201cI wish UCF was better at addressing the threat to any students on campus,\u201d said another student.\u00a0<\/p>\n Sofia Santiago, a freshman psychology major, expressed appreciation for the UCF Student Government as she agrees that campus safety is a significant concern for her.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI do walk by myself a lot at night, especially staying late for clubs and things like that,\u201d Santiago said. \u201cI’ve been hearing a lot about older men going up to younger girls and everybody\u2019s just like, \u2018You need to be safe, be cautious, stay aware.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Escobar said safety is crucial to the success and well-being of the student body and is, in turn, essential to UCF.<\/p>\n \u201cThey shouldn’t have to worry about not being safe, especially when students are taking exams, doing their extracurriculars, getting experience in their different areas,\u201d Escobar said. \u201cSafety should be something that they don’t have to worry about.\u201d<\/p>\n As GAP continues to observe UCF\u2019s responses to the Legislative Priority Survey and review active Florida legislation, the committee is further developing its advocacy agenda for the annual Day at the Capitol in Tallahassee next year. This is a chance for students to lobby their legislative priorities at Florida\u2019s Capitol.<\/p>\n \u201cIf we don\u2019t tell the legislature what we need, who is going to?\u201d Varela said. \u201cWe are the voice of the students. There is no better advocate than the students themselves for themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Student Senator Bobby Escobar speaks to Florida Legislators and Orange County Residents advocating for campus safety legislation at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":47834,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[115,139,141,140,22849],"class_list":{"0":"post-47833","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-orlando","8":"tag-news","9":"tag-orlando","10":"tag-orlando-headlines","11":"tag-orlando-news","12":"tag-student_government"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47833","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47833"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47833\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47834"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47833"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47833"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}