The US Attorney General drew attention to the fact that ¨nearly one in four college women experience some form of sexual assault by their senior year¨. He called for ¨fresh solutions¨ in his speech to the American Bar Association on August 12. Headlines in Canada and the USA show that action is needed to implement those effective and fresh solutions for frosh weeks.
Just 3 short weeks after the AG´s speech, millions of young men and women started the new academic year. In Canada, two universities made headlines because new students in frosh week games chanted the ¨Y-O-U-N-G¨ words that not only reinforce rape myths but shockingly make particular fun of underage assaults.
This chant was not new – a tradition going back many years. But this time, the media made it headlines. So, the elected leaders of the student´s federations that tolerated or organized the singing resigned. Others were to undergo sensitivity training. Others would to be subject to university discipline.
But the university administrators, who made public statements that they were appauled, did not announce what fresh solutions they would initiate to protect their students from sexual assault – fresh solutions for frosh week!! Some even said that they were doing everything to make their campuses safe for learning. But are they?
These universities are not the first to make headlines around campus safety from sexual assault. Harvard and Princeton did the same this summer. But in one of these cases, it was reported that administrators wanted to avoid adverse publicity. Either way, they were not reported as announcing any fresh and effective solutions.
Those who want to deny the problem would affirm that sexual assault is rarely reported to college authorities and even more rarely to the police and so the problem does not require action. But today social science surveys confirm that victims of sexual assault are reticent to go to authorities – so official statistics will be only a small percentage of the victimizations.
Sadly these surveys also confirm the US Attorney General´s statistic and have done for more than a decade. One of the most cited sources is the work of Dr. Bonnie Fisher and her colleagues.
But Dr. Fisher is not just about statistics, she is also about fresh solutions and has even prepared a PowerPoint presentation for those working to make campuses safe from sexual assault “Shifting the Paradigm: Primary Prevention on Campuses”. This presentation will help university administrators, campus safety experts and student federations.
She brings together the statistics but also presents promising actions that administrators and students could and should implement. One of these programs is known as the Green Dot, which includes presentations made during frosh week! These encourage students to learn to intervene to stop fellow students engaging in behavior likely to lead to sexual assault or victimization.
The research shows that the program is very successful in mobilizing intervenors. (see for instance, Coker, Ann L., Patricia G. Cook-Craig, Corrine M. Williams, Bonnie S. Fisher, Emily R. Clear, Lisandra S. Garcia, and Lea M. Hegge. “Evaluation of Green Dot: An Active Bystander Intervention to Reduce Sexual Violence on College Campuses.” Violence Against Women 17 (2011): 777–96) As yet the evidence is not definitive on its preventive effects but the logic and the initial programs are extremely promising – certainly way better than the standard inadequate responses or just hand wringing.
Many universities have someone trained on the program, but it is not known how many have actually implemented it. A small but growing number of universities are adopting the Green Dot. The university that pioneered the program was the University of Kentucky, whose President took the risk to admit that sexual assaults took place on his campus and then encouraged a fresh solution. Among the universities that are rightly implementing the program are the University of Washington in the USA and the University of Toronto Mississauga campus in Canada.
Let´s hope media headlines will encourage universities and colleges to implement fresh solutions for the next frosh week.
