By Barley Lewis-McCabe
In a seminar lead by Sheria Gordon and Chrissy Holliday on Thursday, Oct. 3 in the Great Hall, students were presented with an overview of the Time Place Manner (TPM) regulations. The intent was to clear up confusion, but many students left feeling like they had more questions than they went in with.
At the start of the school year, the campus was given $75,000 from the Cal State University system to support TPM education, with things such as community engagement, TPM-related activities, safety training led by campus law enforcement, and tie-ins with other planned events.
Time Place Manner regulations apply to all members of the community and anybody on campus, whether or not they are officially affiliated with the university. The most notable changes were the implementation of the Community Engagement Team (CET), and Free Speech Response Team (FSRT). These two groups are both responsible for making sure students are safe, and the TPM policies are enforced.
The FSRT is made up of administrators whose jobs were already vaguely related to the subject. Their role is to observe events, determine proper action, as well as implement any policy changes, and make sure that the TPM policy is enforced. The CET is made up of student and faculty volunteers chosen by the Dean of Student’s office. They are responsible for making sure community members are safe at these events and have been trained in de-escalation techniques, as well as peaceful resolution strategies.
The FSRT is a part of the CSU-wide initiation of TPM policies, and thus exists at every school, but the CET is Humboldt-exclusive. One of their most central points was that the new regulations are, in Holliday and Gordons own words, essentially the same as before.
One memorable moment was the discussion on spontaneous protests. In the TPM regulations, protests and gatherings with amplified sound have to be approved 2 days in advance.
Some students took issue with this, one being Peyton Leone.
“When something big happens, students have to hold that fear in their hearts for 2 days before being able to do anything,” Leone said.
When this was brought up, Gordon mentioned wanting to alter the rule around it, stating that she’ll, “look into it after the meeting.”
The legality of protests as a whole in the TPM system was something discussed at length. The event was broken up into two parts, with a lecture at the beginning led by Gordon and Holliday, and then the students were split into two groups to discuss any questions they had about the TPM policies.
Last year’s pro-Palestine protests were on everybody’s mind at the seminar. Whether in making vague reference to past events, mentions of encampments, or even upfront discussion on it, it was clearly not forgotten. Elizabeth Loomis, an Anthropology student, talked about their distaste for what they believed to be administration’s hypocrisy around student action.
“The school wants to advertise itself as a place that supports student activism,” Loomis said. “Yet, they called the National Guard on its own students”.
Some of the new system-wide TPM changes seem to be a direct response to the protests, specifically with limitations on unauthorized structures, restriction on free movement, vandalism, and a specific ban on encampments. They also restated that face covering for purposes of identity concealment is restricted, although there are exemptions for personal safety and religious reasons.
The protests were generally mentioned throughout the forum, with Gordon and Holliday both making general statements on mistakes made last spring, and discussions on student discourse, or activism. They also reflected on specific lessons learned, and what they’d do differently knowing what they know now when questioned by students.
“There wasn’t as much large-scale awareness of the TPM policy stuff,” Holliday said. “I don’t think everyone really knew the right way to go about it, or the resources that were there to share their concerns.”
Holliday and Gordon had no comment on whether or not the university was responsible for escalation during the protests.
Interim President Michael Spagna was also in attendance.
“There were a lot of lessons learned, and the only way to go forward is to hear from these experiences and grow from them,” Spagna said.
He also passionately agreed that certain university responses to last semester’s protest were handled poorly.
“There were a lot of things that people regret,” Spagna said. “In high-pressure situations, people are people. They sometimes make mistakes … so admit it, learn from it, and [discuss] what are we gonna do differently next time.”