sexual assault

We Must Not Turn Back the Clock on Sexual Assault

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The following is cross-posted with the Washington Post.

When I was a student in the 1970s and 1980s, it was not uncommon for male professors to use their classroom authority to initiate sexual relations with their students. Of course, teachers didn’t see it quite that way, thinking their evident charms just encouraged their young charges to act on their desires. But once activists and authorities put these abusive relationships in the spotlight, it became clear that the sexual attention from those with power to grade them could be an important restriction on students’ educational opportunities. Sexual pressure from those in official positions on campus was often a type of harassment, and in its most blatant forms a civil rights issue.

Building on this activist work, one of the Obama administration’s most significant legacies in higher education was its use of Title IX and the Office for Civil Rights to deal with sexual harassment assault on campus, especially by other students. “Students across the country deserve the safest possible environment in which to learn,” Vice President Joe Biden declared in the spring of 2011. “That’s why we’re taking new steps to help our nation’s schools, universities, and colleges end the cycle of sexual violence on campus.” Three years later, President Barack Obama made this work even more personal in launching notalone.gov, a website to help survivors of sexual violence: “We need to keep saying to anyone out there who has ever been assaulted: you are not alone. We have your back. I’ve got your back.”

The Trump administration has made no secret of its disdain for strict prohibitions on sexual assault and harassment. As President Trump famously said, “when you’re a star … you can do anything.” Such an attitude coming from our national bully pulpit, combined with a blanket critique of campus disciplinary proceedings, threatens to undermine much of the progress of the last decade. There is, of course, room for improvement in campus proceedings, and strong criticism may be warranted in the handling of particular cases. Many have questioned the lower evidentiary requirements for finding someone responsible for assault (“preponderance of evidence” rather than “clear and convincing”). Although this standard of proof parallels requirements in many civil cases, it can be problematic when one considers the profound effects of a false conviction.

At my university, we regularly review procedures to ensure that adjudication is supportive of those who come forward with reports of being attacked, and that the process is fair in assigning any responsibility to a particular individual. We will pay close attention to the reports filed with the Department of Education in the coming weeks, and we hope to learn from them. It is clear that universities must continue to protect the presumption of innocence and due process for anyone facing serious allegations, even as they protect the rights and well-being of those who have been assaulted.

Of course, easier said than done. Given the ambiguity that often exists around consent, some critics claim that colleges and universities would be better off not dealing at all with the sexual behavior of their students. But what happens when that behavior becomes violent? For many critics there is a basic bottom line: sexual assault is a crime. Use the criminal-justice system and not the code of student conduct, they say, to determine if a crime occurred and what the consequences should be.

This criticism is simplistic and out of touch with the realities of student lives and the criminal-justice system. At Wesleyan, we work closely with local law enforcement so that if a survivor of sexual assault wants to pursue a criminal complaint, she or he has a clear, workable path to do so. But those who point to the criminal justice system as an arena of fairness for rape victims are at best being naive. Cooperating with the criminal-justice system should in no way ease the burden on colleges to create a more equitable campus culture. Federal officials in the Obama years were right to remind us of this burden in case the voices of often vulnerable student groups were not coming through clearly enough.

Adjudication guidelines and the spectrum of a college’s responsibility in regard to sexual harassment and assault will doubtless continue to evolve, but it would be a huge setback if new policies discouraged victims from reporting and schools retreated to smug satisfaction about the lack of sexual assault complaints on their campuses. Colleges should make it easier for students to report assaults and to have confidence in a process of adjudication.

Higher education must not be allowed to return to a time when schools could turn a blind eye to sexual assault without fear of consequences. As survivors came to realize that they “are not alone,” they forced colleges to take sexual assault seriously as a civil rights issue. Part of this was just shining a bright light on the problem — for example, requiring the publication of assault statistics. At my own university, there was a sharp increase in the number of reported sexual assaults. This is a painful, painful process — but a necessary one. Colleges that have few to no reported incidents of sexual assault are today viewed not with admiration, but with suspicion.

The Obama administration was not “authoritarian” in insisting that colleges and universities have a responsibility to try to correct abusive aspects of student culture that often prevent women (and members of LGBTQ communities) from having access to the same benefits of higher education that most men do. Accusations of overreach should remind us of complaints decades ago about the federal government’s so-called excessive role in promoting desegregation, and they dovetail alarmingly with pleas from today’s polluters (and their new friends at the Environmental Protection Agency) who grumble about the government’s “overreach” in trying to combat climate change.

Clearer expectations and better disciplinary procedures are being developed at many universities, and we must calibrate campus disciplinary proceedings so as to protect the innocent. But we must also resist the urge to turn back the clock to a time when those who were raped were greeted with mistrust and worse. Lately the public has been treated to a litany of cases of men whose parents complain about their innocence, of sexually detailed stories of murky encounters that are subsequently recoded as assaults, and of tribunals that use murky pseudo-science to understand trauma and memory. These stories should not obscure the fact that sexual assault destroys lives and undermines a university’s ethical obligation and educational mission. We in higher education must protect the rights of the accused without relaxing the civil rights imperative to eliminate sexual assault as a part of campus culture. It’s our job.

Sexual Assault Awareness Month

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April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month, which should serve as a reminder that we have a year-round duty to strive to eradicate these heinous occurrences that erode the foundations of our community. Wesleyan has been working with groups on and off campus to be better prepared to prevent sexual assault and to deal with its aftermath.  We have partnered with Connecticut Sexual Assault Crisis Services (CONNSACS), and that organization’s website has a wealth of educational material to complement what you can find on the Wesleyan site.  April should remind all faculty and staff to sign up for the ongoing Title VII/Title IX 2-hour workshops.

We’re fortunate that student activism around the issue is both courageous and thoughtful. The academic year began with the Memory Quilt and a visit by the Senator Blumenthal group looking into how we can better respond to sexual violence. As the semester draws to a close, there will be a screening of The Hunting Ground on April 28 in Goldsmith Family Cinema at 8 p.m.  Students will also be holding a Take Back the Night event on April 23.

We have four standing Title IX committees – comprised of students, staff, and faculty from across the campus – working with the greater Connecticut advocacy community on continuously improving our policies and educational practices as well as the efficacy of our interventions. If we are to transform our culture, here and around the world, we must all do our parts by educating ourselves on the myths and realities of sexual violence.

Full Access to Education for Girls and Women

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This week we sadly remember the three-month anniversary of the kidnapping of the schoolgirls from Chibok. The world’s attention for these victims of brutal terrorists has underscored that the battle for equality in the developing world is inseparable from the battle for access to education for girls and women. Unfortunately, no hashtag campaign, no matter how popular, will liberate the girls from an army so convinced of its religious superiority that it rapes, tortures and murders with impunity. An international military effort is needed to defeat Boko Haram — otherwise a protracted civil war in Nigeria will further immiserate the poor in the entire region. Only when these terrorists are defeated will the people of the region have a chance to to share in the benefits that education brings.

Providing a safe place for girls and women to pursue their education is the best vehicle we know for combating poverty, disease and economic injustice. The demand that girls and women have a right to a full and equal education is not a parochial Western value — it is a fundamental human right. It is worth fighting for the ability of girls and women to have a safe, equitable and inclusive education wherever that right is compromised by the dogmatic assertion of male privilege.

Many in the United States have been focused recently on the ways our own culture denies girls and women equal educational opportunities. And the issue isn’t only one of gender. Gay, lesbian and trans students are often vulnerable to attacks — from the subtle to the most extreme. Violence against women, especially sexual assault, has rightly become a major issue for educators who want their campuses to be safe places at which all students can experience the freedom of a transformative education. Sexual assaults are dramatically underreported across the country in general and on college campuses in particular. This will only change when survivors know they will be treated with respect and care, and when the process for pursuing their claims is fair and timely. Schools have a responsibility to work with judicial authorities, but they also have a duty to ensure the safety of their students beyond what police departments and the criminal justice system can do. On my own campus, we know that any assault is deeply painful for the survivor and a serious blow to the community’s ongoing mission to create a challenging but safe environment for learning.

Violence of any kind has no place on campuses, and sexual violence is particularly pernicious in that it can have long-lasting traumatic after-effects and insofar as it plays on stereotypes and traditions of exclusion. When women, or any group, are made to feel more vulnerable, they are less able to receive the full benefits of learning. Activists across the country should be supported in their efforts to empower students to stand up for their right to study in environments free from discrimination, harassment and violence. This work is perfectly in accord with the mission to promote fair and equal access to education.

The free inquiry at the core of a genuine education often leads to challenges to traditional hierarchies. Genuine education challenges privilege and can empower people to change their lives. That’s why the girls in Chibok went to school, and that’s why American students demand access to educational opportunity without the menace of violence. Yes, Chibok is a long way from my university, Wesleyan, and the lives of women in the two places are so very different in many respects, but when we remember our commitment “to bring our girls home,” we remember too our commitment to fight everywhere for the rights of girls and women to claim an education free from the threat of violence.

Campus Conversations on Fraternities

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For the last few years, the issue of sexual assault on college campuses has received intense national and local attention. As the scale of the problem has become more widely recognized, many institutions have taken steps to improve their preventative and disciplinary procedures. At Wesleyan, we significantly revised our sexual assault policies and have focused on three kinds of activity: supporting survivors; punishing assailants; and changing the culture so as to eliminate elements that lead to assault. Bystander intervention is an important facet of most of our efforts in this area. The role of student activists has been crucial to the changes we have made, as has input from faculty, staff, parents and alumni.

As I wrote in the summer of 2013, sexual assault is, among other things, a problem of equity and inclusion. Fear of assault reduces educational opportunity. Sexual assault, I said then, “has rightly become a major issue for educators who want their campuses to be safe places at which all students can experience the freedom of a transformative education.”

Over the past few months the place of single-sex, residential fraternities at Wesleyan has been at the forefront of our discussions, in large part because of the large campus social spaces controlled by all-male organizations. On April 18 an impressive list of students and faculty published a call to action in the Argus demanding that our three all-male residential fraternities “choose to co-educate and drastically reform their societies to be welcoming and safe organizations and spaces for students of all genders.” Two days later the Wesleyan Student Assembly passed a resolution that put a time-frame to this demand: that our fraternities demonstrate “a clear and swift plan of action… beginning with an initial co-educated pledge class in spring 2015.”

The issue of fraternities attracts strong emotions “for and against,” but I’ve been pleased to see that most discussions of the issue here – be it in public forums, letters published in the Argus, or emails to the president – have been conducted in ways that aim at shared understanding. On our campus these issues are complex, and we have a variety of organizations. For example, at Wesleyan we have co-educational societies that have a fair amount of autonomy and, in some cases, residential space. These societies claim the same feelings of community and solidarity that the all-male fraternities prize.

On a campus that so fully embraces coeducation across all aspects of our lives, the presence of single-sex fraternities raises questions about our commitment to gender equity.  And although it is obvious that not all sexual assaults happen in fraternities, there are strong questions raised about fraternity culture and what researchers call “proclivity” to discrimination and violence. While the fraternities have made it clear that they wish to be part of the solution, it’s also clear that many students see fraternity houses as spaces where women enter with a different status than in any other building on campus, sometimes with terrible consequences.

Many of our peer institutions have entirely eliminated “exclusive societies” like fraternities, while a few others have charted different paths. I’ve already made clear to the residential fraternities that we will not accept the status quo. We have informed them that they must allow Public Safety the same level of access required of any other student residence. Failure to agree to Public Safety access will put an end to that fraternity’s existence as a student residence, and given the fact that the owners of the buildings have not yet agreed to this expectation, students now slated to live in fraternities (including Alpha Delta Phi) should make contingency plans with Student Life.

It’s up to all of us to create the kind of campus climate we value, and it’s become very clear that fraternities, as presently constituted, pose challenges to that ongoing effort.  I expect to make a further announcement with respect to the role of fraternities on campus after consulting with trustees at the Board meeting in May. Meanwhile, I‘ll continue to listen to and learn from a variety of perspectives on how to create the best residential learning environment we can.

 

Stamping Out Sexual Violence

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This week we learned that a survivor of a sexual assault had filed a lawsuit against the Psi Upsilon fraternity at Wesleyan, some of its individual members and its national organization. We had not spoken publicly about this matter out of concern for the survivor’s privacy. Now that civil proceedings have commenced, on behalf of the university community, I want to express our horror at this shameful assault. Our internal investigation of the incident, which took place last spring at an event held in violation of university regulations, led to the perpetrator’s dismissal from the university and sanctions against the fraternity and individual members of it.

At Wesleyan there are three residential fraternities. Their buildings, housing a total of 67 students, are owned by their respective organizations. While these fraternities have had some autonomy, all have seen increased scrutiny over the past few years.  In the short term, we have focused our attention on improving the safety of these spaces for all students who use them. On a more general level, we created a Title IX Task Force led by the Board of Trustees in coordination with our Vice-President for Equity and Inclusion, which is working to ensure gender equity throughout the Wesleyan educational experience. In addition, over the next several months we will be gathering information to present to the Board as it considers what role, if any, residential fraternities will have on our campus in the future.

Sexual assaults on college campuses are not, of course, only a fraternity issue. Over several years, Wesleyan has worked to reduce the incidence of assaults on campus, support those who have been assaulted, dismiss those who have been found guilty, and to generally raise awareness about these issues. As I have noted, although at Wesleyan there are usually only a handful of reports of sexual violence each year, each one is extremely painful and leaves a scar on the individual and on the community. Furthermore, we know how under-reported these crimes are across the country in general and on college campuses in particular. Michael Whaley, the vice president for student affairs, issues an annual report on “Wesleyan’s Response to Sexual Violence,” and additional information is available on the university’s Sexual Assault Prevention and Response website. Resources and programs dedicated to this problem include:

  • Wesleyan’s Sexual Assault Resource Coordinator is a full-time member of the university’s Counseling and Psychological Services staff and serves as the point person for coordinating support for survivors of sexual assault. She works closely with the Sexual Assault Response Team – a group of trained staff and faculty who provide support for survivors.
  • We Speak, We Stand, Wesleyan’s Community of Care program, provides bystander intervention training to empower bystanders to intervene in situations involving such issues as high-risk alcohol use and sexual violence. Sexual violence is a complex and multi-faceted societal issue, and therefore requires the attention of all campus constituents.
  • “We Speak, We Stand” also leads mandatory sessions on sexual violence at new student orientation. Subsequently, new students convene for small residentially based discussions about sexual assault and alcohol use.
  • Wesleyan annually makes its policies regarding sexual violence clear to all students, faculty, and staff through communications from the Dean of Students and the Vice President for Student Affairs.
  • The Sexual Assault Resource Coordinator and Director of WesWELL have worked with student groups on a healthy relationship workshop series, a consent campaign, a “Red Flag” campaign to address dating violence, and several support group for survivors of sexual assault.
  • Wesleyan continues to work with student organizations, including fraternities, on the safety of their programs for all students.
  • The university annually evaluates its own efforts to assess efficacy and ensure that everything possible is being done to provide a safe environment for everyone on campus. We want all members of our community to be confident in the care we take in dealing with any reports and in the fairness of our procedures.

Sexual assault at colleges and universities is a national problem, and it is important to raise awareness about these heinous crimes. On our campus, we have had our consciousness raised concerning this issue, but each incident is still agonizing – traumatic for survivors and painful for the whole community. As president of alma mater and as a parent, nothing disturbs me more than these attacks. My heart aches for those who have been victimized, and I work to ensure that we do everything we can to support them.

The great majority of Wesleyans are united in wanting to create a campus unencumbered by sexual violence. In concert with our community, I am determined to explore all avenues for changing our culture to stamp out sexual assault. I will work together with all university constituencies to continue to improve our ability to care for survivors, vigorously pursue perpetrators, and create a positive campus climate in which sexual violence has no place.

We Can Stop Violence Against Women

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As I concluded my time in Washington D.C. this week, I was impressed to see the following statement released by the White House. First, it quotes Vice-President Biden:

Freedom from sexual assault is a basic human right.  No man has a right to raise a hand to a woman for any reason — any reason — other than self-defense.  He knows that a nation’s decency is in large part measured by how it responds to violence against women.  He knows that our daughters, our sisters, our wives, our mothers, our grandmothers have every single right to expect to be free from violence and sexual abuse.  No matter what she’s wearing, no matter whether she’s in a bar, in a dormitory, in the back seat of a car, on a street, drunk or sober, no man has a right to go beyond the word “No”.  And if she can’t consent, it also means no.  That too makes it a crime.

President Obama then went on to say:

It’s about all of us — our moms, our wives, our sisters, our daughters, our sons.  Sexual assault is an affront to our basic decency and humanity.  And for survivors, the awful pain can take years, even decades to heal.  Sometimes it lasts a lifetime.  And wherever it occurs — whether it’s in our neighborhoods or on our college campuses, our military bases or our tribal lands — it has to matter to all of us. ….

So sexual violence is more than just a crime against individuals.  It threatens our families, it threatens our communities; ultimately, it threatens the entire country.  It tears apart the fabric of our communities.  And that’s why we’re here today — because we have the power to do something about it as a government, as a nation.  We have the capacity to stop sexual assault, support those who have survived it, and bring perpetrators to justice. …

Today, we’re taking another important step with a focus on our college campuses.  It is estimated that 1 in 5 women on college campuses has been sexually assaulted during their time there — 1 in 5.  These young women worked so hard just to get into college, often their parents are doing everything they can to help them pay for it.  So when they finally make it there only to be assaulted, that is not just a nightmare for them and their families, it’s an affront to everything they’ve worked so hard to achieve.  It’s totally unacceptable. …

My hope and intention is, is that every college president who has not personally been thinking about this is going to hear about this report and is going to go out and figure out who is in charge on their campus of responding properly, and what are the best practices, and are we doing everything that we should be doing.  And if you’re not doing that right now, I want the students at the school to ask the president what he is doing or she is doing.  And perhaps most important, we need to keep saying to anyone out there who has ever been assaulted, you are not alone.  You will never be alone.  We have your back.  I’ve got your back.

I applaud the president and vice-president for taking on this crucial issue. In a blog over the summer I wrote that “violence of any kind has no place on our campus, and sexual violence is particularly pernicious in that it plays on social stereotypes and traditions of exclusion. We applaud groups active across the country, like Know Your IX, which are calling on students to stand up for their right to study in environments free from discrimination, harassment and violence. This work is perfectly in accord with our mission to promote progressive liberal arts education for all.”

I know that we can constantly improve our practices and policies for dealing with sexual violence on campus, including violence against gay, lesbian and trans students. We do this not out of an effort to appear to have the correct politics or to avoid bad press and law suits.  We do this, as I’ve said before, because freedom from gender and sexual violence is essential to our mission as a community of learning. An inclusive learning community is one free of violence, and that’s the kind of community all of us — students, faculty and staff — work to build at Wesleyan.

The Obama administration is right to call attention to this vital issue. If anyone at Wesleyan has ideas about things we can do better in this area, please let me know. By eradicating sexual violence, together we can make our campus more inclusive and equitable.

Inclusion and Gender: Obstacles and Opportunities

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This is the second in a series of summer blog posts on obstacles to and opportunities for inclusion. Subsequent posts will focus on political and religious beliefs, and economic inequality. Previous post is here.

 

Wesleyan began an experiment with co-education in the late 19th century that lasted until 1912. At that time, alumni groups put pressure on the administration to return to the status quo embraced by the all-male schools with which the university compared itself. In reaction, a more adventurous group of alumni joined to help found Connecticut College as an institution for the education of women.

In 1968, at a time when many schools were considering co-education, Wesleyan began admitting women as transfer and exchange students and two years later admitted first-year female students for the first time since 1909. I began as a freshman in the fall of 1975, shortly after those students had graduated. By then, in just those few years, co-education had made great strides, so much so that I wasn’t aware of how recently women had become part of campus culture. Looking back, many of my women friends were doubtless more aware than I of the barriers to inclusion that still existed for female students – and for students of color, and gay, lesbian and trans students. There was certainly an active feminist movement on campus, but (as I recall) the primary focus was on global issues of patriarchy with some activists taking on local issues of campus discrimination and sexual harassment.

In recent years there has been a resurgence of efforts on college campuses to eradicate discrimination on the basis of any identity affiliation – be it race, gender, or sexual orientation. Furthermore, students have rightly insisted that the curriculum become more inclusive so that issues related to under-represented groups are reflected in more of the courses we teach. As a teacher and as a university president, I see how this has broadened our work in a wide variety of fields. Sometimes the challenges of curricular inclusion are substantial as we move resources from some traditional areas to newer ones – it’s economically irresponsible just to keep adding things without trimming. The discussions around these topics, although sometimes challenging, have led to a broadening of what we mean by liberal education.

Over the last few years there has been increasing awareness that the oldest barrier to gender inclusion, violence, is still a major issue on American university campuses. Gay, lesbian and trans students are often vulnerable to attack – from the subtle to the most extreme. Violence against women, especially rape, has rightly become a major issue for educators who want their campuses to be safe places at which all students can experience the freedom of a transformative education. Although at Wesleyan there are usually only a handful of reports of sexual violence each year, each one is extremely painful and leaves a scar on the individual and on the community. Furthermore, we know how under-reported these crimes are across the country in general and on college campuses in particular. We have convened task forces and worked together to make it easier to report these incidents and to be confident in the process that would bring alleged assailants to a fair, effective judicial process. Dean Mike Whaley (VP for Student Affairs) and team will be issuing an annual report, as they regularly do, detailing our most recent changes in this regard before the beginning of the school year.

Violence of any kind has no place on our campus, and sexual violence is particularly pernicious in that it plays on social stereotypes and traditions of exclusion. We applaud groups active across the country, like Know Your IX, which are calling on students to stand up for their right to study in environments free from discrimination, harassment and violence. This work is perfectly in accord with our mission to promote progressive liberal arts education for all.

Wesleyan’s history with co-education has gone through different stages. Our experiment in the late 19th and early 20th century was truncated, but it did plant seeds that would be harvested later on. The women who came to campus from the late 1960s on have worked to create an educational environment free from discrimination. There have been moments of pain and frustration, but we are dedicated to continuing the progress toward genuine inclusion.

We honor that history and extend it as we take on with renewed energy the project to eradicate sexual and gender violence from our university. We do so not because of political correctness or issues of liability. We do so because freedom from gender and sexual violence is essential to our mission as a community of learning.

Take Back the Night, Give Back to Community

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Tonight (Thursday, April 7) is Take Back the Night, when members of our community gather to raise awareness about sexual violence and to create a safe, caring space for survivors to share their experiences. Just this week members of the administration participated in a conference call with White House officials and university leaders to discuss how we can reduce the most prevalent form of sexual violence on campus, attacks on women. We were helped in this conversation by the good work of the Sexual Violence Task Force, whose recommendations are currently being implemented. Come to the steps of Olin Library tonight at 7:00 to show your support!

Tomorrow night is Green Street’s Feast for the Senses auction fundraiser. The event, sponsored by Mary Beth and Stephen Daniel ’82, gets underway with a preview at 5:30. The monies raised will go to support our Summer Arts and Science Academy and the new Young Women’s Leadership Institute. Come on down to Green Street tomorrow, and be ready to bid!!

After marching with the Take Back the Night group last night I went to see Samantha Joy Pearlman’s senior thesis theater project, Devotedly, Sincerely Yours: The Story of the USO. My mother is a singer, and I grew up with the music of the 1940s featured in the show. It was such a treat! The band was great, and Samantha gave a funny, moving, FABULOUS performance. The show is at the CFA Theater tonight (Friday, 4/8) at 8 pm.

Let’s Prevent Sexual Violence

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All colleges and universities in this country have developed policies and procedures to prevent rape and other violent crimes. But still these problems continue. No institution can afford to be complacent in this regard. At Wesleyan there have recently been a number of important conversations concerning sexual (gender) violence/prevention, and I applaud the efforts to bring these important and difficult issues to the fore.  I also want to acknowledge the work of faculty, students, and staff, which not long ago led to the revision of our sexual misconduct and assault policy as well as to the creation of our Sexual Assault Resource Team (SART). SART consists of staff who serve as resources and advocate for students reporting offenses along with an intern for Wesleyan’s Health Services.  We are engaged in a search to hire a Director of Health Education whose responsibilities include prevention and education around sexual violence and health. We also will continue to seek advice and recommendations from students, faculty and parents — whether they call for a dedicated staff position or any other idea for how to better deal with these issues.

Far too often on college campuses incidents of sexual violence go unreported, and I want to express my admiration for those who courageously come forward. Irrespective of questions of guilt or innocence in any particular case, the more attention we can bring to this awful problem, the better we can address it. There have been student, parent, staff, and faculty meetings this year to discuss the steps necessary to make Wesleyan an even safer environment in which all students can thrive. In order to build on these efforts, I have asked vice-presidents Sonia Manjon (Diversity and Strategic Partnerships) and Mike Whaley (Student Affairs) to lead a task force to gather the best thinking from the faculty, students and staff that should lead to further improvements to our policies and staffing. I expect to receive their recommendations by the end of the calendar year.

Violence, including the heinous crime of sexual violence, has no place on this campus. This is a lesson that was seared into our community’s memory a year ago. It is a foundational principle here, and we welcome the opportunity to review our policies and procedures with the goal of asserting and living up to that principle as strongly and consistently as we can.

[tags]sexual violence, Sexual Assault Resource Team, Director of Health Education, Sonia Manjon, Mike Whaley[/tags]