In the wake of student Yuxi Wu’s passing and an attempted robbery on campus, UMKC School of Law students are urging the Student Government Association (SGA) to form a committee to address safety concerns.
“We have been talking for the last few months about this issue, and as soon as Yuxi Wu was killed we immediately said ‘OK, this has to happen now,’ because someone’s already died and we can’t let that happen again,” said second-year law student Kyle Nelson.
In a SGA meeting on Oct. 7, law students shared that they have set aside a small group of their leadership to examine campus safety and some of the parking issues.
“Our hope is that a committee will form and really just solicit opinions and ideas from the campus at large, and try to come up with solutions while we’re working with the administration,” said Nelson.
Nelson brought forward the request and possible solutions from the student legislation at the meeting.
“It’s not just to have the undergraduate and graduate students work together, but it’s also to ask the university to work with us,” said Nelson.
Law school students proposed several solutions to these safety issues, including marking down intersections that are dangerous, increased lighting, speed bumps and emergency telephones.
The School of Law has been looking into this issue for the past year, after a student’s car was broken into. Most of the concerns from student submissions dealt with campus parking.
“We wanted to move everything forward so that we could not just help our community at the law school, but also to make sure the campus at large is taken care of,” said Nelson.
The SGA executive board is unable to speak about the proposal at this time, but said they have ongoing conversations with the administration about safety fixes. Director of Internal Affairs Alex Unseth said the executive board is always open to ideas that give a plan on how to increase student safety.
“It was a complete tragedy. We at SGA put out a statement about it on our Instagram and continue to stay in contact with the conservatory,” said Unseth. “Our hearts go out to everyone affected by it.”
For more information about the SGA, check out its Instagram and RooGroups.
