When Murray State residents lost power on Feb. 15, one freshman took matters into his own hands.
Samuel Harless, political science and social studies teaching certification major, created the petition to “Demand Accountability for Murray State University’s Negligent Infrastructure” on Feb. 16.
“I was motivated to start the petition because our University has decided to openly not care about their students’ wellbeing,” Harless said.
While Harless is a commuter student, he said he became frustrated with how the University handled the power outage situation. He said he saw the University’s decision to use a backup generator to host a basketball game while dorms didn’t have power as a misordering of priorities.
“I felt it was time to truly call out the institution and make them realize how they are harming their students, their prospective students, their admissions rate and the fact that the current students can sway the future,” Harless said. “If the students of today continue to tell people that Murray State isn’t worth it then down the road, there will be no University.”
The petition’s support exploded after the University announced that RH White and Regents residence halls would be closed for the week following the power outage, forcing residents into temporary housing accommodations. Communication issues throughout the relocations resulted in some residents sleeping in cars and others booking hotel rooms.
“I believe that people were drawn to the petition because everyone is sick and tired of the University administration not being honest or not taking accountability for the failing infrastructure, lack of communication, prioritizing unnecessary projects over student wellbeing,” Harless said. “Many people feel like they can’t speak out against a public university because there is a lot of uncertainty of the repercussions of it, but the petition allows them to simply sign it and no one will ever know that they were one of the over 1,700 signatures.”
While Murray State has been listed as one of the decision makers of the petition since the petition was posted, the University has left no public comment. Harless said he wasn’t surprised the University hasn’t publicly addressed the concerns raised by petition signers or provided an official stance. The Office of Branding, Marketing and Communication declined to comment on whether the University planned to leave a comment on the petition.
“The University has clearly shown a pattern of ignoring, deflecting and not communicating,” Harless said. “As we saw with the WPSD lawsuit against Murray State, they have a pattern of not being transparent and not being willing to speak out when they are called out for their own failures.”
In 2023, WPSD filed a lawsuit against the University for violations of the Kentucky Open Records Act. When documents related to an investigation were requested, the University denied access to records and heavily redacted documents. A settlement was reached after a judge ruled the University was in violation of the Kentucky Open Records Act. The University had to pay WPSD over $42,000 in legal fees.
“I am saddened that our outgoing president is more concerned with funding a vet school that has failed to get approval from the last five general assembly sessions while his current students are living in collapsing infrastructure,” Harless said. “If our University really wants to step up and become better, they need to begin making contingency plans for these situations, while they can’t control the weather or its effects, they can have systems in place to not leave students stranded for hours. It is also time for the Murray State PR machine to give accurate information and actually respond when the public starts to question them.”
After RH White and Regents residents moved back into their dorms on Feb. 23, the University offered them the following reimbursement: either a credit of $150 for food and a credit of $200 to cover housing applied to a student’s RacerCard account or a $350 Walmart gift card.
Some members of the Racer community have speculated on various social media platforms that the University’s reimbursement was partly motivated by the awareness the petition raised. When asked if this was true, the Office of Branding, Marketing and Communication declined to comment.
Harless said he is currently working on “next steps.”
The petition can be found at https://www.change.org/p/demand-accountability-for-murray-state-university-s-negligent-infrastructure?source_location=petitions_browse&pt=AVBldGl0aW9uAKxKOx0AAAAAZ7Miy2DWuDE4NGYzNDYzZA%3D%3D.
