University of Kentucky president Eli Capilouto introduced two new safety initiatives to student, faculty and staff members on Feb. 18, 2015.
“We have worked hard to make the University of Kentucky a leader in protecting the health and well-being of our students, faculty, staff, patients, and visitors. Over the last four years, we’ve spent millions of dollars on technology, programs and people, all designed to create an even safer campus,” read the email.
This includes “Haven,” the university’s first online violence prevention curriculum.
According to Capilouto’s email, “These two efforts [the Haven program and a CATS safety survey] are essential to our ability to create appropriate policies and further strengthen our culture of safety and mutual responsibility.”
Regardless of major or year in school, every student at the University of Kentucky is required to complete the Haven curriculum by March 9, 2015.
Failure to complete the program by the deadline will result in a university-sanctioned hold on a student’s account, preventing him or her from registering for next semester’s classes on time.
I applaud the university’s administration for taking this step to educate students about rape and sexual assault on UK’s campus; most students, however, rolled their eyes at the email.
“This is so dumb. I mean, it’s not like it’s going to happen to me.”
According to the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy’s article “Sexual assault and rape on U.S. college campuses: Research roundup,” President Obama appointed the White House Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assaults in January 2014. The group worked to compile a list of recommendations to help colleges and universities reach this goal.
Before releasing its report, the White House’s Task Force consulted with the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network to the organization’s recommendations regarding sexual assaults on college campuses. According to the Shorenstein Center’s article, RAINN proposed a three-tiered approach to prevention. These include bystander intervention education (empowering community members to act in response to these acts of sexual violence occurring on campuses), risk-reduction messaging (encouraging individual students to take steps to increase their personal safety) and general education to promote understanding of the law (especially where the ability to consent is concerned).
After conducting months of extensive research on rape and sexual assaults at the university level, the White House released its first report in April 2014, entitled “Not Alone: The First Report of the White House Task Force to Protect Students From Sexual Assault.”
The goal of the Task Force’s report was to dramatically reduce the number of students sexually assaulted on college campuses (which currently stands at one in five, according to the Campus Sexual Assault’s 2006 study), through increasing awareness on the subject and researching new methods for prevention.
“As the name of our new website – NotAlone.gov – indicates, we are here to tell sexual assault survivors that they are not alone. And we’re also here to help schools live up to their obligation to protect students from sexual violence,” reads the Task Force’s report.
The report recommends conducting frequent campus climate surveys (both to pinpoint and determine the extent of the problem), preventing sexual assault by engaging men (as most are not the perpetrators who commit these crimes, colleges and universities should empower these students to stand up for what’s right), effectively responding when a student is sexually assaulted (including increased trauma training for officials and better school disciplinary systems for those students who wish to file a formal complaint), and increasing transparency and improving enforcement (giving those students affected by these crimes the tools and resources they need).
Though the Haven program introduced by the University of Kentucky’s administration attempts to educate students about rape and sexual assault on campus, it falls short of its goal.
The online violence prevention curriculum defines multiple terms for users (most notably what it means to “consent” to sex), but it doesn’t include the “big-picture,” realistic aspects to the issue. For example, Haven doesn’t survey the students as to how they view rape and sexual assault at the university (the program lists the statistics, but doesn’t ask for student feedback), nor does it provide a list of resources for students, whether it’s how to sign up for counseling through the VIP Center or how to go about filing a formal complaint through the university (upon further review, I did see a contact list on Haven’s homepage, though I did have to actively search for it).
Any future programs designed for UK students should be designed with the White House Task Force’s recommendations in mind. Most of all, I’d like to see a bystander prevention method implemented in the next few years, a program required of all UK students.
In doing so, the university’s administration will create a zero-tolerance environment for these crimes on our campus, compelling the UK and Lexington communities to take action when it comes to rape and sexual assault at the university.
Even though Haven is a good step in the right direction, there is still more work to be done. We’ve made progress, but this is only the beginning.
Only when the University of Kentucky says “we won’t stand for it,” will students reply, asking “how can we help?”
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