Students happy with Board of Regents mental health discussion

Board of Regents members visited UWRF on March 25 to talk to student representatives about issues the campus is facing.

Amy Bogost and Kyle Weatherly are two of the newest elected members on the board of regents. Bogost has a long history of practicing law and has provided training on implementation of Title IX at Tribal colleges. Weatherly is the CEO and co-founder of Frontdesk, a short-term housing provider founded in 2017. Prior to Frontdesk, Weatherly was the president and co-owner of Solaris, a medical device company.

While at UWRF, Bogost and Weatherly toured the campus and spoke with many different students. At one meeting students represented groups like the Chancellor's Student Ambassadors (CSA), Student Government Association (SGA), and the Black Student Union. 

During this meeting many topics were discussed such as the current mental health of students on campus, the flexibility or lack thereof, of classes, the lack of technology at UWRF to have the flexibility that students want, and the lack of participation in extracurriculars.

Matthew Fischer, who represented SGA stated, “I think one of the biggest themes that I saw come out of here is a lot of flexibility and having a flexible campus. Using that hybridization of classrooms and making sure that our university is providing the proper resources for students to succeed here.”  

Many students also felt that the regents brought up unexpected and important topics and were very pleased with how the regents responded to the discussion.

Kaye Anderson, representing CSA, stated, "I was actually really happy with how receptive they were and how many questions they asked. I thought that they seemed super interested in the conversation that we were having and that was really nice to have.""

Jeslyn Andrews, who represented SGA, brought up how she thought this conversation was super important for all universities to move on from COVID stating, “I think it was a great way because it shows that we as a system want to move forward but not just move forward like everyone else but in a positive way and learn from the last two years and this experience that we’ve had.”

Although many topics were discussed there was a common theme when interviewing students who attended the meeting and that was they want to keep UWRF unique from the rest of the universities in the system 

“I want to be able to talk more about how we got to keep a continual focus on what made UWRF, UWRF and why we are still here and what we are known for today while still having options for everybody to be a diverse campus,” stated Fischer.

Andrews said, “One thing is a lot of regents, because they come from Madison and Milwaukee, they really want us to grow as a school and they always ask us that and we really don’t want that. We want River Falls to be what it is and so I think that’s like one thing that I want to keep reiterating to them is like don’t change because we are perfect the way we are.”