By Emily Gianni
13 percent of all students experience rape or sexual assault: 9.7 percent being females and 2.5 percent being males. Women in college are three times more likely to be sexually assaulted than all other women. This needs to be put to an end. It is beneficial for students to know how to protect themselves, but for colleges to also take accountability and help their students.
When in college, it is important to know your resources. Know who you should reach out to if something happens or could happen. Look for the blue emergency lights around campus just in case of an emergency on campus. It could also be beneficial to program the campus security number into your cell phone for easier access.
For students, it is important to know how you can keep yourself safe. You will not always be walking with someone, whether it is during the day or at night, so it is still important to stay alert. When you are in your dorm room or apartment, make sure your place is secure: lock the windows and doors when you are asleep or even home alone.
When you go out, make sure you have a plan. Go out with people you trust: even if you only have one person to look out for you, this is better than anything. Touch base with those you go out with. It is important you don’t leave those you go out with in an unfamiliar place. You should always make sure your friends are with at least one other trusted person. It is especially important to protect your drink. Watch your drink get made and poured, and never leave your drink unattended.
It is okay to lie if you are in a situation where you feel unsafe. You do not have to protect the other person’s feelings if you are truly uncomfortable. You can have your friend call you to get out of situations like these, walk up to another person with a friendly face and pretend like you arrived at the place together, or just lie and say you have to go. Going along with this, be a good friend and recognize when something is wrong. If you see something going on, act on it and take care of your friends.
But college assaults go further than what students can do. People should not have to fear what could happen to them around campus. Going to college should feel like a safe place to live. Colleges need to take accountability for what happens on their campuses, rather than place all of the security measures on their students.
Improving how sexual assaults are handled on college campuses goes further than this. Schools need to take these cases more seriously. Schools can increase the presence of safety officers: not just in buildings, but around campus at various locations, especially at night. Colleges should also campaign for example, “See Something, Say Something.” It is important to get this message across because it shows the school really cares about their students. Colleges can have bystander intervention training. This allows campuses to become safer by teaching students and staff what to do in certain situations.
College campuses can create different safety apps, or a built in portion to their regular school app. This allows students to write about issues going on around campus, or to even ask for support from a security officer around campus. Everyone now has their phone on them all of the time. This app would be more beneficial to students because they can ask for help no matter where they are, especially if they cannot find one of the blue emergency lights.
Schools need to have conversations about sexual assaults on campuses. Sexual assaults can happen anywhere and it clearly happens to college students. Colleges need to make their campuses as safe as possible. It is also important for the campus to be a safe space to talk about assaults. Colleges need to listen to students about what happened and be able to adapt their plan in place for when assaults happen.