Chancellor Bob Coombe answered questions regarding the university administration’s role in student life at the Chancellor’s Roundtable last Thursday.

About 40 students attended the quarterly event at which Coombe, together with Provost Gregg Kvistad and several faculty members, fielded questions about his openness to student concerns.

“We respond to student interest,” he stressed again and again. “Our ears are open.”

Students questioned the administration’s involvement in areas such as the environmental sustainability movement on campus, sexual assault awareness and Greek life. Coombe responded by questioning how much involvement in campus life should there be by top university officials.

“How much should the administration push or just step back?” he asked.

He pointed to the lack of cohesion in the campus community, saying, “There is an active and coherent core of students, but there is a lack [of participation] in the rest of the campus. What we need to do is raise the level of intellectual awareness on campus.”

Apart from this core, he said, there is an unengaged population that just doesn’t care. An example he used is that in any campus-wide survey or election, the administration or organization is thrilled to get 20 percent of the student population to respond or vote.

Responding to criticism that DU has lagged behind other Colorado schools in implementing student-led initiatives on environmental sustainability, Coombe, disagreed and said, “The momentum [for environmental sustainability] is there and actually, DU does very well…energy consumption has declined even as the population of the university has grown.”

Several students noted that many of the environmentally friendly changes on campus, such as the Wind Energy Initiative, which was passed in 2006, have been primarily student initiated and organized.

Provost Kvistad urged students to engage a wider forum so that initiatives “can mobilize around the students and faculty.”

Coombe agreed. “Personally, I’m on board, but as chancellor, I have to know what it costs…in order to decide whether the university formally signs on,” he said.

Another student pointed out that student organizations have mobilized to educate the community about the dangers of sexual assault and Coombe expressed his support for the movement.

However, a student called for more involvement by the administration in this movement because, as he put it, “although I’m passionate about the issue, it’s not actually my job to educate the student population…it’s your job. It’s the administration’s job.”

Coombe agreed but stressed the importance of an engaged student population. “The approach has to be a cultural one…creating a culture that simply will not tolerate these things.”

It is the administration’s job to facilitate information, but [sexual assault] will be solved by the community and its values, said Coombe.

“For this to work, students have to engage,” he said.