Thank You

Thank you again to everyone who has supported us so far in our efforts to have a qualified director hired at the Veterans Resource Center at Portland State University. Myself and another student-veteran had an additional meeting on August 1st with the Assistant Vice-President of Student Access and Success. Due to their faith in the search and hiring committee, the administration is refusing to remove the new director. It has been stated that the search and hiring committee chose the best qualified candidate, and that the new director was in no way hired due to their gender, race, or identity. We have stated that the search and hiring committee may have felt they made the right decision at the time, but now student-veterans are coming forward with a wide array of issues (listed above in the petition) and the administration is ignoring our concerns. We also believe that an inadequate amount of student-veteran input was reflected upon, due to the fact that the meet and greet portions of the hiring committee took place on and around finals week; a time whenever there were few student-veterans using the Veterans Resource Center facilities. Myself and other student-veterans will continue to reach out to other resources on campus to gather concerned parties to help back our claim. The bottom line is this: The administration has hired a person to represent a demographic group that does not identify with the demographic group they are representing. Now, members of the demographic group are coming forward and airing their concerns that this person is not qualified to represent us, and the administration is ignoring this. We believe this negligence by the administration would not happen if it were any other demographic group or resource center on campus. We will continue to gather evidence and support, both on and off campus, and we will not stop until we, as veterans, receive the qualified director that we deserve and our community is repaired.