On Monday, UA President Robert C. Robbins announced that Governor Liesl Fawkes has resigned and Paula Barrafus will resign as UA Police Chief, effective immediately. The university is launching a nationwide search for permanent replacements.

The resignation comes after months of criticism directed at the UA administration over the handling of threats filed against hydrology professor Tom Meixner by a former student. was charged with first-degree murder in the Meixner shooting.

Monday’s resignation announcement was an uphill battle and was expected, said Katherine Zeiders, a faculty senator and associate professor of family and consumer sciences at the UA.

“This was a coordinated move. We have many staff, students and faculty advocating for and working on this behind the scenes,” Zeiders told the Arizona Daily Star on Wednesday.

“We have been organizing and advocating since 2020 and have focused on worker protection and fair wages,” said Zeiders, who is also an organizational member of United Campus Workers in Arizona. increase.

“But after Tom’s death, we felt we had had enough and started organizing about managerial accountability.”

After Meixner’s death, news reports and two subsequent separate surveys (one compiled by the faculty and one by the external consulting firm PAX, LLC) led Dervish to establish a relationship between Meixner and the Department of Hydrology. It was publicly revealed that he had been sending threatening correspondence to many others for nearly a year.

Dervish was expelled in February 2022 and barred from campus, but that didn’t stop him from communicating with Meixner and others. UA Police Department.

However, according to the PAX report, UA did not operate an “effective threat assessment management team,” imposing an “undue burden on administrative functions,” and creating a “decentralized fragmentation of campus security.” It is said that it led to the “approach that was

The report also cited multiple “missed opportunities” for the UAPD to “implicate, disrupt and arrest” Dervish, who had an extensive violent criminal record prior to Meixner’s death.

Police said they lacked effective communication with law enforcement in Pima County and provided a “full picture of the seriousness of the threat and provided more substantive grounds for arrest” of Dervish.

The Pima County Attorney’s Office declined to indict Dervish for misdemeanor threats and intimidation in early 2022 based on evidence in a report filed by the UAPD for some of his actions.

When the PAX report was released to the public in March, Robbins released multiple statements, acknowledging that university leaders made mistakes, making meaningful changes and rebuilding trust with students, faculty and staff. I swore that

But on the same day in March, the UA Faculty Senate passed a non-binding vote of no confidence in Robbins and his administrators’ ability to investigate and manage campus safety. At the time, the senator told The Star that he hoped Robbins would interpret the vote as a “wake-up call” rather than a call to resign.

“Organizing the dismissal of the administrator was our last resort,” said Seiders, who said she and other faculty members were overheard by the administrator in the aftermath of the Oct. 5 killing. He added that he felt no.

But last month, Robbins met with a number of faculty and students to work on campus safety reforms. Zeiders said the administrative changes announced Monday gave the impression that he was taking these conversations seriously.

“I hope this is part of a larger change,” Zeiders said, emphasizing wage increases, worker treatment and safety. “We want leaders to be held accountable.” This is our university that we love, and we want to see these systemic changes in our university.”

For Kathy Varin, Senior Business Manager in the Department of Hydrology, the resignation of the Chief of Police will bring some comfort as she prepares to return to work on campus next fall.

“I’m glad she’s gone. She should have been gone the next day,” Valin told The Star. should have known.”

Valin was around the corner on the day of the shooting when he heard gunshots and rushed to Meixner’s side until the police arrived. ‘” Valin told The Star. “I knew he was threatening, but I didn’t know to what extent.”

According to Varin, who has been with UA for 20 years, the department of hydrology was even considering putting emergency buttons in the building in case the Dervish came. However, it was expensive and had to be paid for by the department, so it never materialized. . How can I survive? “

But when Varin returns to campus next fall, panic buttons will be installed in numerous buildings on campus, in addition to the background checks required for all graduate students.

UA is making these and other changes, including installing more locks and keyless entry, launching a mobile crisis team, setting up a new safety website, and streamlining office surveillance to address safety issues. increase.

These are a step in the right direction in the eyes of Valin, who has already seen the worst-case scenario of ineffective campus safety protocols.

“I’d love to see more police on campus. Maybe there are other students thinking about things like this. They need a deterrent,” Balin said. “If you can keep the Murad Cult out of your department, trust me, you want to.”

At the same time, some students said they were afraid of the kind of atmosphere that the increased police presence would create.

Nousha Aldhefery, a junior and student activist, said she didn’t want to see more police officers hired to serve the UAPD in Balafas’ absence.

“We’ve never felt safe around the police, especially after Professor Meixner’s death,” she said Thursday at a rally in front of the Old Main, where dozens of students attended the dean of student affairs, Kendall. He called for the additional resignation of Washington White.

In a petition calling for White’s resignation, activists said that White “does not want to participate in the process of rebuilding trust with the people he has a responsibility to serve and, on the contrary, White and other UA officials did not respond to Starr’s request for comment on the petition.

“Instead of hiring more police, I want the government to work with us and see what makes us feel safe.

Commenting on Folks’ resignation as Chancellor or Chief Academic Officer to found the UA Semiconductor Manufacturing Center, Aldhefery said:

“It’s good, but it’s not the solution. …If this solves it, they’ll let us solve everything else.”

Steve Patterson, who currently heads the threat assessment and management team and began his job as interim chief safety officer on Monday, did not comment to Starr on Barrafus’ departure.

But he said balancing safety and trust was one of his top priorities in launching the new Public Security Bureau.

He said he will work with the newly formed Campus Safety Advisory Committee to discuss questions such as “how to engage with the campus community and ensure that people feel comfortable reporting to the university” or the UAPD. .

He added that campus safety has a wide scope. “It’s not just about making campuses safe from violence,” Patterson said. For example, “It’s about ensuring fire safety and having enough defibrillators in the right places.”

Patterson will also appoint a new police chief and deputy attorney who will work together to carry out that plan, though Robbins said at a press conference on Friday that it would be months before the UA would take any of those roles permanently. He said it could happen.

“Organizational changes can also be good for rebuilding trust,” said Robbins, noting that “many mistakes were made” in the last school year, and that the new president and police chief had “safety first.” I acknowledged that the idea of ​​“one” would be necessary.

“There are many opportunities for improvement to make our campus safer,” he said.