Yesterday, Men Can Stop Rape launched their new bystander intervention campaign geared towards addressing sexual violence on college campuses. “Where Do You Stand?” uses a number of tools such as trainings, posters, and media materials to encourage young men to become active bystanders to end sexual violence.

According to Men Can Stop Rape’s press release, “Where Do You Stand? continues Men Can Stop Rape’s commitment to primary prevention by creating everyday solutions to prevent men’s violence against women and girls,” said Men Can Stop Rape Executive Director, Neil Irvin. “This campaign builds on young men’s ability, desire, and commitment to being strong without being violent.”

Continue reading to view the full text of the press release.

PRESS CONTACT: Amy Terpeluk
Tel: (212) 593-2792
Cell: (917) 826-2326
amy@finnpartners.com

COLLEGE MEN LAUNCH WHERE DO YOU STAND?, A NEW NATIONAL INTERVENTION PROGRAM TO STOP SEXUAL ASSAULT ON CAMPUSES

Leading men’s prevention organization, Men Can Stop Rape, collaborates with American Association of University Women to increase the number of men on campus who intervene to prevent dating violence and sexual assault

WASHINGTON, D.C. – January 31, 2012 – Today, Men Can Stop Rape, a leading national organization mobilizing boys and young men to prevent violence against women, is launching a new nationwide intervention movement to empower college men to speak up and prevent violence on campus.

This new push to build safer college campuses is a direct result of the many recent incidents of rape, sexual assault and dating violence that have occurred on campuses. Sixty two percent of undergraduate students say they have encountered some type of sexual harassment⁽¹⁾, and a recent survey shows that nearly half (43 percent) of all dating college women report having ever experienced violent or abusive dating behaviors ⁽²⁾.

Men Can Stop Rape is taking an entirely new approach to preventing these incidents. For the first time, they are focusing on male bystanders who witness potentially violent situations and teaching them how to step in before situations escalate into actual physical or sexual violence.

This initiative involves several elements including the launch of an innovative public awareness campaign called Where Do You Stand?. This campaign uses a variety of media materials including billboards, posters and t-shirts, displaying provocative visuals and messages that illustrate how easy it can be for men to speak up and prevent violence.Where Do You Stand? also uses bystander intervention trainings and peer-education sessions that equip them with the necessary skills and tools to intervene.

“Where Do You Stand? continues Men Can Stop Rape’s commitment to primary prevention by creating everyday solutions to prevent men’s violence against women and girls,” said Men Can Stop Rape Executive Director, Neil Irvin. “This campaign builds on young men’s ability, desire, and commitment to being strong without being violent. We look forward to using Where Do You Stand? to deepen existing relationships and build new partnerships with college campuses across the country.”

The collaboration with the American Association of University Women’s 100,000 members nationwide, illustrates the spirit of teamwork that Men Can Stop Rape aims to incorporate onto every campus where this new campaign will take root. Men Can Stop Rape hopes to continue to build these powerful collaborations with women’s groups to help support existing rape and violence prevention programs on campuses and to increase these groups’ resources by bringing men and women together around these important issues.

“It’s crucial that both women and men address sexual harassment and violence on campus. This is not just a women’s issue,” said AAUW Program Manager, Holly Kearl. “By joining forces, we can work together to challenge the culture that fosters those dangerous behaviors, involve more men and give all students nationwide the tools they need to be part of the solution.”

The initiative will also seek to increase the presence of Men Can Stop Rape student leaders on college campuses by building more student-led chapters of their Campus Men Of Strength (MOST) Clubs. MOST Club members serve as activists for violence prevention on campus. They facilitate trainings, plan events and partner with other community and campus organizations to educate men about stereotypes that perpetuate violence, different ways to approach potentially dangerous situations and how to overcome men’s reluctance to confront their peers when they see unhealthy interactions they suspect could become dangerous.

Today, college men from Georgetown, American University and George Washington University, along with area high school students, will come together at Georgetown with collaborators from the American Association of University Women (AAUW), and the School and College Organization of Prevention Educators (SCOPE, www.wearescope.org) to launch this new violence intervention movement at a meeting of Men Can Stop Rape student leaders.

“Intervening in the presence of disrespect toward a woman can be easier said than done,” said Matt Scott, sophomore at George Washington University and Campus MOST Club member. “Everybody faces challenges in life where women, and men for that matter, are being degraded in front of them. It is tough to know how to handle it but Men Can Stop Rape makes it easier for men to challenge stereotypes and take a stand.”

Universities across the country have already requested the new Where Do You Stand?intervention materials and programs and are highly anticipating the opportunity to introduce this national campus movement to their students. Additionally, partners from the District of Columbia Office of Victim Services have joined with Men Can Stop Rape with the goal of distributing Where Do You Stand? materials to campuses city wide. The college men leading this movement are working to ensure every campus has violence and sexual assault prevention and intervention programs in place.

The Where Do You Stand? materials, trainings and programs and the Campus MOST Club programming are available to be activated on campuses nationwide. For more information about Men Can Stop Rape, visit www.mencanstoprape.org.

About Men Can Stop Rape
Men Can Stop Rape is the leading national organization mobilizing boys and men to prevent violence against women. The program has reached over 2 million boys and men in the past 10 years with a message of “strength without violence.” Men Can Stop Rape’s cutting-edge prevention programs are grounded in the social ecological model which recognizes that individual actions profoundly affect entire communities and ultimately all of society. Utilizing a proven curriculum, awareness campaigns, prevention and intervention trainings and programming, Men Can Stop Rape is engaging men and boys to build safer and healthier communities. For more information about Men Can Stop Rape, visit www.mencanstoprape.org.

¹ Harris Interactive® online survey conducted on behalf of the AAUW Educational Foundation, 2005

² Liz Claiborne Inc.’s Love Is Not Abuse 2011 College Dating Violence and Abuse Poll, 2011

“We are Penn State. That’ll never change. … Understand this is really a call to duty.”

Last week, Penn State’s campus erupted. The Board of Trustees announced that beloved football Head Coach and collegiate athletics legend Joe Paterno was fired, effective immediately. Penn State football is its own culture, boarding on being a religion to students, alumni and Division I football fans.

Penn State Head Coach Joe Paterno and President Graham Spanier were fired as a result of their failure to act after learning of numerous sexual assaults perpetrated by former Assistant Coach Jerry Sandusky. Sandusky is currently being investigated by the Pennsylvania Attorney General for 40 counts related to child sexual abuse. Other coaching staff and campus administrators are also being charged as a result of being passive bystanders, choosing to not take any action that would protect or support the victims. University Athletic Director Timothy M. Curley and Senior Vice President for Finance and Business Gary C. Schultz are being charged with perjury and failure to report child sexual abuse allegations to the proper authorities.

Paterno is quoted as saying, “At this moment the Board of Trustees should not spend a single minute discussing my status. They have far more important matters to address. I want to make this as easy for them as I possibly can. This is a tragedy. It is one of the great sorrows of my life. With the benefit of hindsight, I wish I had done more.”

As the complexity of the situation at Penn State unfolds, Paterno’s comment of “I wish I had done more” resonates with what advocates and prevention educators know to be true; there is more work to be done. Some of that work can be accomplished through these mechanisms:

1) Empower campus administrators, faculty, and staff to speak up and step in when they witness sexual harassment, sexual assault, or intimate partner violence.

• It is not enough that college campuses have a formal policy regarding reporting sexual harassment, sexual assault, or intimate partner violence. The crucial step is putting policy into practice. All administrators, faculty, and staff must be trained on how to report, what the formal mechanisms around reporting are, and the ramifications of failing to report.
• Administrators must place emphasis on and prioritize the well-being of the survivor, and encourage all employees of the campus to do the same.

2) Promote a campus culture that supports prevention efforts, not just intervention efforts.

• There are a number of campus programs that are geared towards promoting gender equity and safety for their entire campus population. These programs bring both administrators and students to the table, encouraging partnership and cooperation to create a community response to violence on campus. Some of the ones that have recently been discussed at CALCASA are:
• UNH Bringing in the Bystander 
• Green Dot
• Alert students to policies and procedures that exist on campus so that they know their role in preventing violence and intervening if or when they witness it. Let them know who they can speak with confidentially and who they can report to, where they can find these individuals, and what process they should follow to insure that their voices are heard.

3) Dismantle our connection between sports, masculinity, and power on campus.

• We can start this process by acknowledging that the real tragedy is not about football. It is not about who holds social and financial power on campus. It is not about asserting that sports culture and the dominant story of heterosexual masculinity that often times comes with sports culture reins supreme on a prominent state school campus. This is about a failure to uphold a legal and ethical obligation to protect a survivor of sexual assault.

4) Reach out

• There are national, state, and local partners who are trained to provide education and guidance around this topic. CALCASA staff members are able to provide referrals for campus programs, prevention education, intervention and advocacy services, and media response. Please contact:
• Denice Labertew: denice@calcasa.org (Advocacy and Campus)
• Leona Smith Di Faustino: leona.smith@calcasa.org (Prevention and Advocacy)
• Alexis Marbach: alexis.marbach@calcasa.org (Prevention and Policy)
• Jessica Renee Napier: jessica@calcasa.org (Media)

Blog post co-written by Leona Smith Di Faustino and Alexis Marbach.

College and university campuses working to create safer communities benefit from networking with campuses and accessing resources.  CALCASA is one of the handful of technical assistance providers charged with helping campuses funded by the U.S. Department of Justice Office on Violence Against Women to Reduce Domestic Violence, Dating Violence, Sexual Assault and Stalking on Campus meet their grant goals and objectives.  To connect with the technical assistance providers, read the following list of the OVW Campus Grant minimum requirements and the TA providers that specialize in helping campuses build and maintain safer learning environments.

Coordinated Community Response – California Coalition Against Sexual Assault

Judicial affairs/disciplinary board training & policy – Mississippi Coalition Against Sexual Assault

Prevention & Education for Incoming Students – Kentucky Domestic Violence Association

Law Enforcement/Security – East Central Oklahoma University

Lindy Aldrich, Deputy Director of the Victim Rights Law Center, led today’s web conference on working to improve survivor-centered institutional response to sexual violence.  She addressed common challenges that arise when enforcing policy as well as the intersection of our work with the Office on Civil Rights Dear Colleague Letter issued in April 2011.  Campuses dialogued on how overall implementation and enforcement requires strategy and multidisciplinary collaboration.

Materials from today’s web conference (the audio recording will be made available later):

Once the policy is written (pdf)

Audio recording of Once the Policy is Written (mp3)

Text chat transcript (pdf)

Campuses struggle with overcoming challenges when implementing survivor-centered sexual misconduct policies

Lack of administrative buy-in?  An ad-hoc disciplinary board with rotating officers that routinely fails to attend specialized training on sexual violence? These are but a few of the institutional challenges campuses encounter when developing and implementing policies that are survivor-centered in a campus-wide effort to create and maintain a safe environment.  How can campuses create goals and strategies that support survivors and comply with federal law?

Lindy Aldrich, Deputy Director of the Victim Rights Law Center, will guide the discussion on Tuesday, October 25 with colleagues working to improve survivor-centered institutional response to sexual violence.  She will address common challenges when enforcing policy as well as the intersection with the Office on Civil Rights Dear Colleague Letter issued in April 2011.

NOTE: the web conference is mandatory for college and university campuses currently funded by the Department of Justice Office on Violence Against Women Grant to Reduce Sexual Assault, Domestic Violence, Dating Violence and Stalking.  Materials from the web conference will be made available to th general public on Wednesday, October 26th.   

Trainings are a critical component of the work that we do in the anti-sexual violence field.  Often times, the message (read: content), although relevant, highly applicable and innovative, is lost because of the approach or techniques used to reach the target audience.  Derek Lane, PhD, Associate Professor in the Department of Communications at the University of Kentucky, facilitated today’s Campus Program web conference on communication skills to enhance training impact.

Materials from today’s web conference (audio recording will be available on October 5th):

Communication with Trainees to Enhance Training Impact

Communication Training Mandatory Education_DOJ OVW Campus Program (pdf)

Message Centric Approach to Knowledge Acquisition (pdf)

UC Merced launches "Know Your Power" bystander campaign as the class of 2015 arrives

The CALCASA Campus Program works with college and university campuses across the U.S., Guam and Puerto Rico that are funded by the U.S. Department of Justice Office on Violence Against Women to reduce sexual assault, domestic/dating violence and stalking.  Today, we are featuring a guest blog post about one of the 123 institutions we provide technical assistance to highlight the innovative campus and community-partnerships in response to and prevention of sexual violence on campuses.  

UC Merced received a grant for nearly $45,000 from the Verizon Foundation to support a domestic violence prevention program aimed at college students. The grant supports the administration of the Know Your Power Bystander Social Marketing Campaign developed by researchers at the University of New Hampshire.  The translation of the Know Your Power Bystander Social Marketing Campaign for the UC Merced Campus was a collaborative project of the Violence Prevention Program Director, Kari Mansager, UC Merced’s Associate Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs, Charles Nies, and the University of New Hampshire researchers. The Know Your Power campaign helps prevent domestic violence, sexual violence, and stalking by instructing community members to take an active part in stepping in and speaking up against these crimes. Community members are encouraged to interrupt situations that could lead to assault or during an incident, speak out against social norms that support sexual violence, and have skills to be an effective and supportive ally to survivors of violence.

Student involvement has been an important part of the development of the Know Your Power Bystander Social Marketing Campaign. During the spring 2011 semester, over 250 UC Merced students were recruited to participate in focus groups to develop the four scenarios featured in the Know Your Power campaign. The scenarios portray typical college scenes that explicitly model safe and appropriate bystander behaviors in the prevention and intervention of domestic violence, sexual violence, and stalking.  The bystander social marketing campaign includes displaying posters across campus, free products with the Know Your Power logo to all first-year students, bookmarks distributed in student bookstore orders, dining hall table tents, a customized interactive website, digital displays and more! The campaign will be displayed from late August until early October on the UC Merced Campus. UC Merced is working with the University of New Hampshire to evaluate the effectiveness of the campaign and plan to share the evaluation findings in spring 2012.  To view the campaign images, visit www.know-your-power-UCMerced.org.

-Kari Mansager, Director of Violence Prevention Program at UC Merced

©Men Can Stop Rape. Used with permission.

Men Can Stop Rape has just released its newest comprehensive bystander intervention program for men called Where Do You Stand? This program is designed to implement on college campuses.  This program builds on the strength of their Strength Campaign by including positive messages, promoting  healthy masculinity, and having action recommendations that highlight what can be done.

Click here to see the Were Do You Stand? Campaign Guide.

Teresa White-Walston, of Women Organized Against Rape, reviewed critical concepts when developing survivor-centered training for first responders and law enforcement on college/university campuses.

Teresa White-Walston, Director of Education at Women Organized Against Rape in Philadelphia, led today’s webinar on critical concepts for training first responders and campus law enforcement on how to respond to reports of sexual assault, domestic violence, dating violence and stalking.

Materials from today’s webinar include:

Powerpoint (pdf) for Survivor Centered Training for First Responders and Law Enforcement

U.S. Department of Justice 2005 Report on Sexual Assault on Campus: What Colleges and Universities Are Doing About It

Recording (accesible to webinar registrants)

Chat Transcript of Law Enforcement Webinar Training

How first responders and law enforcement interact with survivors of sexual violence are crucial for campuses working to create safer learning environments.

Survivors of sexual assault, domestic violence, dating/relationship violence and stalking navigate myriad systems, social stigma and range of emotions after experience violence.  The decisions a survivor makes as they cope are further impacted by their encounters with others.  How first responders, such as law enforcement personnel, interact with survivors of sexual violence have a tremendous impact on both the individual and institutional levels.

On Tuesday, July 26, grantees of the U.S. Department of Justice Office on Violence Against Women grant to reduce sexual assault, domestic violence, dating violence and stalking on campus will come together for a webinar on “Survivor Centered Training for First Responders and Law Enforcement.” Teresa White-Walston, Director of Education, at Women Organized Against Rape in Philadelphia, will facilitate the webinar where she will address key concepts that campus communities should consider when training campus security/law enforcement.

Materials from the training will be made available to the public following the training.

Bystander intervention is a critical component of the national movement to end sexual violence on college and university campuses

PreventConnect Reading Club

Programs to encourage bystanders to take action to prevent sexual violence and domestic violence have become recognized as promising approaches to primary prevention of violence.  In the June 2011 issue of the journal Violence Against Women, there are many articles sharing the results of research on the effectiveness of bystanders programs.

On July 28, 2011, join other PreventConnect prevention practitioners throughout the country in the July PreventConnect Reading Club to examine “Evaluation of Green Dot: Active Bystander Intervention to Reduce Sexual Violence on College Campuses” (Violence Against Women, June 2011 vol. 17 no. 6 777-796.)

PreventConnect Reading Clubs are small, one hour session where public health practitioners and researchers can discuss research and practice. This Reading Club, will focus on bystander intervention as a means to reduce sexual violence on campuses.

Reading Club Session

Thursday, July 28, 2011. This ninety minute (90 min) session will start at 11.00 a.m. Pacific Standard Time (2 p.m. Eastern Standard Time).

Registration is limited to 28 people per session.

To register, click here.

The University of California Schools recently released a new website focusing on efforts UC campuses are doing to build a coordinated community response and develop comprehensive educational programs which address sexual assault, dating and domestic violence, and stalking on campus. Students can get information on where they can seek help, view university policies and procedures and prevention efforts, to name a few.

Girls Educational & Mentoring Service

Raising consciousness about the complexity surrounding human trafficking is an increasingly important aspect of sexual violence. As we broaden our lens to end sexual violence, it is critical to discuss the struggle associated with human trafficking.  Many groups, communities and organizations across the country and world are collaborating in identifying root causes of violence, risk & recruitment, and strategies that multidisciplinary teams can use to systemically address sexual violence by drawing from the efforts of colleagues working to end trafficking.  This webinar presents an opportunity for practitioners to make the link between the trafficking of young girls and women with the sexual violence response practices of coordinated community response teams at institutions of higher education.

This webinar will present a basic overview of the issue of the commercial sexual exploitation of children (CSEC) in the United States. Stephanie M. Cabrera Esenwa is an attorney with GEMS, an organization that serves sexually trafficked minors, provides technical assistance to law enforcement and social service agencies.  It will examine the factors that put youth at risk for this type of exploitation, and will discuss how youth are recruited into and trapped in the commercial sex industry.  Best practices for engaging with exploited youth will be discussed.  The webinar will serve as a space to discuss the intersection of commercial sexual exploitation of children with domestic/intimate partner violence to raise critical consciousness and dialog with participants about ways in which coordinated community response teams can engage with each other to create more effective response practices.

Webinar Presentation on CSEC (slides in PDF)

Recording of Presentation on CSEC (available to registered webinar participants only)

In light of the recent “Dear Colleague” letter from the United States Department of Education.  Sexual assault on college campuses is being brought to light with this recent segment on the Today Show.

In addition, the universities mentioned on the Today Show also submitted their response to the segment.

University responses

The Campus Institutes are being held in San Francisco, Atlanta, Philadelphia and Lexington, Kentucky

Recipients of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), Office on Violence Against Women (OVW) Grant to Reduce Sexual Assault, Domestic Violence, Dating Violence and Stalking on Campus can register for the Summer 2011 Campus Training & Technical Assistance Institute.  The four institutes will be held during the week of June 20 across the United States.

• Coordinated Community Response – San Francisco – hosted by CALCASA
• Judicial Affairs Training – Atlanta – hosted by MSCASA
• Law Enforcement Training - Philadelphia – hosted by East Central Oklahoma University
• Mandatory Orientation & Education – Lexington, KY – hosted by Kentucky Domestic Violence Association

The deadline to register for the Institute is May 18, 2011. If you have any questions, contact CALCASA campus@calcasa.org.  Registration for the event is limited to college and university campuses currently funded by the U.S. DOJ Campus Grant Program.

"TECHSexUSA: Youth Sexuality & Reproductive Health in the Digital Age" presents the range of opportunities for improving outreach, services and messaging

Technology has become a powerful medium through which sexual and reproductive health education is disseminated across the U.S. Hundreds of online and mobile programs conduct awareness, outreach, advocacy and parent-engagement activities. However, there is a growing concern about the quality and sustainability of these efforts, particularly for underserved youth populations and their parents.  In March 2011, ISIS, Inc. published “TECHsex USA: Youth Sexuality and Reproductive Health in the Digital Age,” a white paper that provides an overview of the current youth sexual health and digital landscapes, specifically how youth of color use technology, communicate and discuss sexual and reproductive health.

Based on the study’s findings, the authors conclude that “messaging via multimedia digital channels and reinforced by in-person communication with trusted adults has the most potential to reach youth where they are – with messages to which they can relate.”  The white paper reiterates the need and vast array of opportunities the fast-paced environment of digital platforms present practitioners.

Opportunities

• Youth want more programs that continue to spread the word in their communities, as well as greater access to health services, testing and condoms
• More accurate information online and via mobile devices
• Professional stakeholders are interested in collaborating with other professionals (researchers, funders, and interventionists) to share successes, failures, and opportunities

As April marks Sexual Assault Awareness Month (SAAM), many colleges and universities highlight the issues of sexual assault on campus by organizing events to continue to bring about awareness of sexual assault.  Walk A Mile In Her Shoes, originally created by Frank Baird, a volunteer rape crisis advocate at California State University, Northridge’s affiliated rape crisis center -Valley Trauma Center (VTC) , is a 10 year event in which men literally walk a mile in women’s shoes showing solidarity and standing up against violence against women.

The University of Northern Iowa’s “Walk A Mile In Her Shoes” event is one of several events held on campuses around the nation recognizing and supporting violence against women.  Fraternities, sororities and the general campus population contributed to the event and supported awareness on violence against women. Northern Iowa is no stranger to proactively working on violence against women on campus.  UNI has been addressing the issues for several years with great programs including “Student Success” and UNI’s Violence Intervention Services.   Click here for more information.

CBS 60 Minutes aired “The Case of Beckett Brennan,” which told the case of a young woman who was raped in 2008 while attending the University of the Pacific. The rape occurred at a student housing complex by three men who played for the university’s basketball team. The university’s judicial review board — made up of three students, a teacher and an administrator — ruled that all three basketball players were guilty of violating the school’s policy against sexual assault. But they received different punishments: expulsion, suspension for one year and suspension for one semester. Brennan said the board’s questions made her feel as if the case was less about the basketball players, and more about her behavior.

“So much of what they focused on was not the actual assault,” she said during the 60 Minutes interview. “Tons of questions about how much I was drinking, a focus on flirting.”

Joelle Gomez, Executive Director from the Women’s Center of San Joaquin County, was also interviewed for the segment. She began counseling Brennan after the board’s decision. She also has been working vigilantly to partner with UOP and improve its judicial review process (in cases of sexual assault).

“There’s little to no transparency. There’s little to no accountability,” Gomez said during the interview. “Certainly it does, in my opinion, favor the alleged perpetrator as opposed to the victim, again, who’s really risking it all in making the report in the first place.”

CALCASA has supported Gomez in her persistence to create relationships with her local university in order to better serve survivors and stop future rapes from occurring. CALCASA interviewed Gomez about the UOP case and her recommendations for rape crisis centers that are working with college campuses. She said that it is the duty of the rape crisis centers to strengthen relationships — or forge them if they don’t exist — in order to make sure victims voices are heard. Click the video below to watch the interview.

Joelle Gomez, Executive Director, Women's Center of San Joaquin County

This Sunday, April 17 at 6 p.m., Joelle Gomez, Executive Director from the Women’s Center of San Joaquin County in Stockton, Calif., will be featured in an interview with Katie Couric on 60 Minutes.

The segment focuses on two rapes that occurred in 2008 at the University of the Pacific (UOP). Gomez and the staff at her center have been strong voices for victims, vigilantly working with UOP leadership to improve sexual assault investigation and increase ongoing prevention programs on the campus. The interview will highlight the flaws in college campus sexual misconduct policies and the need for nationwide reform of these policies.

“When the Women’s Center was approached to be a part of this 60 Minutes segment, it meant a lot of thought before we engaged in that interview process,” Gomez told CALCASA. “The bottom line was: We have to be there to be the voice for victims. We are the advocates in the community. Although this is not unique to the University of the Pacific, we know that sexual assaults are occurring at an alarming rate across the nation. And if we have an opportunity to shed light — even though the university was not going to be pleased with our platform — it’s the right thing to do. We have a duty to stand by our mission, and that is to bring their voices to the forefront and to really instigate the change that is so needed.”

CALCASA encourages you to tune into to the segment this Sunday, April 17 at 6pm on CBS. After the segment airs, CALCASA will feature an interview conducted with Gomez about recommendations for rape crisis centers in forming partnerships with colleges and universities.

Feminism For Real: Deconstructing the Academic Industrial Complex

What is feminism?

One answer (articulated in mainstream platforms): Feminism is political, social and economic equality for women!

Another response will include the evolution of feminism in the last century. In some cases, the response will include the elimination of kyriarchy, the intersection of oppressive structures, of various bodies. This goes beyond the notion that only people that self-identify as women or are perceived to be women are oppressed. There is no one form of feminism.

Asking “what is feminism for real” is not a self-indulgent exercise — not when lives are at stake. Rather, it is a responsibility that we share in distributing knowledge, narratives and community resilience. Oppressed communities struggle with feminism while remaining engaged in the movement. The contradiction(s) experienced between theory and practice is a reality that produces outrage, motivation and disappointment (among countless other emotions).

In an effort to document diverse experiences and openly discuss this contradiction, Jessica Yee, a self-identified Two Spirit multi-racial Indigenous hip-hop feminist reproductive justice freedom fighter, edited Feminism For Real: Deconstructing the Academic Industrial Complex of Feminism, an anthology of brilliant and honest essays that examine the complexity of issues surrounding indigenous people, people of color in feminist spaces.

Confronting the sometimes uncomfortable questions feminism has made us ask about what’s going on FOR REAL paved the many paths that brought the contributors of this book together to share their sometimes uncomfortable truths, not just about feminism, but about who they are and where they are coming from.

How is the anti-sexual violence movement integrating feminism, and not perpetuating oppression, into this work, professional and personal relationships, agencies, campuses, communities and across transnational borders?

Sexual violence is a reality on college campuses and finding ways to address the issue can be a taxing effort; however, the White House announced new administration efforts to help colleges and universities address the issue of sexual violence.  In an unprecedented effort to address sexual violence on campus, Vice-President Biden and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan spoke at the University of New Hampshire to announce the comprehensive guidance.            Press Release

The announcement was followed by a conference call to the field, hosted by Lynn Rosenthal, White House Advisor on Domestic Violence, and Evan Ryan, Director of Intergovernmental Affairs and Public Engagement, to answer any questions and solicit future feedback from advocates, faculty/staff and others.  This serves as an open invitation for feedback to the White House on ways to better provide services and response to sexual assault on campuses, including community efforts via rape crisis centers.

“Today we are strengthening our response to sexual assault in schools and on college campuses,” said Vice President Biden. “Students across the country deserve the safest possible environment in which to learn. 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.”

Students Active For Ending Rape (SAFER) challenges campus communities to recognize this SAAM as Sexual Assault ACTIVISM Month and pledge to change how their campus prevents and responds to sexual violence.

During April, there is a heightened awareness of the anti-sexual violence movement’s concerted efforts in preventing and responding to sexual violence by increasing survivor-centered legislation, advocacy/public health practices, and public safety protocols. College and university campuses are at the center of some of the most innovative and inspiring expressions of awareness, prevention and response in the global movement to end sexual violence. It is no coincidence then that the most recent campaign for action by Students Active For Ending Rape (SAFER), the country’s only organization that works to end sexual violence and rape culture by empowering student-led campaigns to reform sexual assault policies on college and university campuses, calls on students, alumni, parents, faculty, and administrators to transform their awareness into activism by pledging concrete action toward ending sexual violence on campus.

Students and their allies on campus (including alumni, parents, faculty, staff and administrators) can choose one or more action items that include:

• Participate in SAFER’s Campus Accountability Project
• Contribute to SAFER’s Tumblr with definitions of accountability and their chosen anti-sexual assault direct actions
• Take steps to launch a campaign to reform campus sexual assault policy!

How will you transform awareness into activism this Sexual Assault Activism Month?  To learn more about SAFER’s vision and national projects, check out the following video.

The State of California is vast and diverse; the most populous state in the country. As the 8th largest economy in the world, California educates more college students than any other state in the nation and most countries. California’s public and private postsecondary institutions educate 2.7 million students each year, from diverse backgrounds and who come from all over the world to learn in renowned colleges and universities.

CALCASA has worked together with educational institutions for many years through our Campus Program to promote and assist in establishing effective public safety services. We believe the Golden State’s colleges should stand out amongst the crowd and lead the nation in making our college campuses safe for students, faculty, and the surrounding communities.

We know rates of violence are highest among students between the ages of 18- and 24-years-old, the median college-going age. We know college campuses receiving federal student aid must disclose their crime statistics to the public on their website and to the federal Department of Justice. We know more can be done by campuses and policy makers to improve and promote public safety programs and community partnerships to help keep our students safe from violent crime. That is why CALCASA is proud to work with policy makers to introduce and pass Assembly Concurrent Resolution (ACR) 17 that would declare March 2011 as California Campus Safety Month and encourage all private and public institutions to work with students, administrators, faculty, and community advocates to promote public safety.

Simply put, no one institution can stop campus violence alone. These partnerships are essential to keeping students safe. As a public safety leader in the state, CALCASA will continue to encourage partnerships between campuses, state agencies, policy makers, and victim advocates.

If you have any questions about how to get involved in Campus Safety Month or how to work with your local educational institution, please contact phillip@calcasa.org.

As sexual assault awarness month approches in April, here is a webinar as part of a larger series offered by Jewish Women International on campus sexual assault with guest speakers from CALCASA’s Campus Program and The University of Wisconsin at Madison.

Sexual Assault on College Campuses:
How DV Providers Can Help

Join us on Thursday, April 14, 2011
12 to 1 pm ET

It has been a year since Yeardley Love was murdered on her UVA campus. We know that sexual assault, dating violence, domestic violence and stalking occurs on college campuses. But we don’t know what, if anything has changed.  Join us as we look at a model program at UW- Madison that provides a multidisciplinary and survivor centered approach in coordinating services and prevention efforts to better serve students, providers and community members at large. This webinar will address the challenges campuses face in ending sexual violence, review how community based organizations can work with campuses as well as discuss opportunities for collaboration with funding programs offered by the federal government.

Leading the discussion:

Dan Esparza, is the Director of Campus Program at the California Coalition Against Sexual Assault (CALCASA). The Campus Program is a federal grant program through the U.S. Department of Justice, Office on Violence Against Women (OVW) focusing on reducing sexual assault, domestic violence, dating violence, and stalking on college campuses, and includes over 100 campuses as part of the program.

Carmen Hotvedt, Violence Prevention Specialist and project director for the campus grant program at UW-Madison. In her role, Carmen works with students, faculty, staff, and community organizations to further a spectrum of violence prevention through programmatic initiatives, systems advocacy, and coordinated response models. A queer feminist activist working to end violence against women since 1996, Carmen is a former staff member of the Montana Coalition Against Domestic And Sexual Violence, the Toledo, Ohio, YWCA Battered Women’s Shelter, the University of Toledo Sexual Assault Education and Prevention Program, and PRIDE! Montana.

Livia Rojas, is the Training & Resource Coordinator of the Campus Program at the California Coalition Against Sexual Assault (CALCASA). Livia provides technical assistance on coordinated community response efforts to college and university campuses funded by the U.S. Department of Justice Office on Violence Against Women to reduce sexual assault, domestic violence, dating violence and stalking.  Prior to joining CALCASA in 2009, Livia worked at Columbia University School of Social Work, Sanctuary For Families in New York City, and the American Civil Liberties Union of San Diego & Imperial Counties.

Agenda:

Campus environment: an overview of sexual assault, domestic violence, dating violence, and stalking on campus
Brief description of U.S. Department of Justice, Office on Violence Against Women Campus Grant Program- What it is and what it is not
UW- Madison Program- What are the issues on campus;  how it affects students; and how advocates outside of campus can collaborate
Campus & Community Collaborations for survivors of sexual assault, domestic violence, dating violence and stalking
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The Stalking Resource Center (SRC) at the National Center for Victims of Crime (NCVC), in conjunction with the California Coalition Against Sexual Assault (CALCASA), recently released the Model Campus Stalking Policy for colleges/universities.  As many universities look at creating or enhancing their existing sexual misconduct & intimate partner violence policies, the SRC policy creates an additional opportunity for addressing stalking and providing options for survivors in higher education.  The policy includes safety considerations, language for defining stalking, and sample policies for administrators.

On March 9, 2011, Dan Esparza, Director of the Campus Program at CALCASA, co-presented with Jessica Heredia, Assistant Director of the Sexual Assault Resource Center at UC San Diego & Jessie Towne-Cardenas, Prevention & Education Director at Center for Community Solutions in San Diego, on the webinar “Campus & Rape Crisis Centers: Opportunities for Collaboration.”

To download the recording, click here.

Campus & Rape Crisis Centers: Opportunities for Collaboration presentation materials.

If you have any trouble accessing the webinar materials, contact livia@calcasa.org.

For anyone interested in applying for the OVW Fiscal Year 2011 the Grants to Reduce Sexual Assault, Domestic Violence, Dating Violence, and Stalking on Campus Program ( “Campus Program”) solicitation.  DEADLINE IS MARCH 31, 2011.

For any questions regarding the Campus Program, please contact Myrta Charles.

Myrta Charles
Senior Program Specialist
Office on Violence Against Women
United States Department of Justice
145 N Street NE, 10th Floor
Washington, DC 20530
202-305-2977
myrta.charles@usdoj.gov
www.ovw.usdoj.gov

Berkeley, CA – The rain did not stop feminists from gathering on Saturday, February 19th for the 26th Annual Empowering Women of Color Conference at the University of California at Berkeley. The theme of “Building Across Difference: Inciting a Movement of Our Own” echoed throughout the nation’s oldest and largest one day gathering of women of color. Workshops, speaker presentations, panel discussions, performances, networking and vendors, encouraged, challenged and implored participants to focus on mental health and strengthen bonds across identities.

A brief summary of the conference speakers that does no justice in capturing the energy and authenticity they all emanated in a packed ballroom at UC Berkeley’s Martin Luther King, Jr. Union Pauley Ballroom:

Opening Speaker: Dylcia Pagan, a Puerto Rican activist/television producer. By sharing descriptive stories of her activism and struggles as a Puerto Rican woman in the United States and in Puerto Rico, Dylcia’s warm, unfiltered talk reminded us that freedom/libertad comes from within and through community building.

Afternoon Speaker: Ericka Huggins, activist and professor at California State University, East Bay. “Humility and openness is the root of activism,” she said while discussing how the academy doesn’t teach students or researchers humility though it is often humiliating for academicians. Professor Huggins ended by noting that “service to humanity & to the academy can be balanced,” so long as we replenish ourselves through self-care.

Closing Speaker: Angela Davis, Professor Emerita of History of Consciousness and Feminist Studies at UC Santa Cruz, warned us of many things. One warning that is particularly relevant to those of us in the field of sexual violence?  ”Do not assume that the category of women represents all women.” The hierarchies around race, class, gender identity, sexuality, immigration status, ability, and age among other identity markers are part of the negotiating, deconstructing, and healing process that is building movements based on acknowledging histories of subjugation.

Professor Davis succinctly summarized the conference theme when she ended her discussion by saying, “whatever you do, don’t do it myopically.”

A post on the EWOCC workshops and panels will follow later this week.

Campus grantees chatted with OVW Campus Program Managers

On February 16, 2011, the United States Department of Justice, Office on Violence Against Women Campus Program Managers led the winter Project Directors meeting. The Project Directors meeting is an opportunity for the OVW Campus Program Managers to answer questions and address concerns from the Project Directors. Historically, the Project Directors of the OVW Campus Grant would gather during one of the six sessions at a Campus Training & Technical Assistance Institute.  This year, however, Project Directors stayed on campus to chat with the OVW Program Managers.

The presentation, recording and text chat transcript are available to download. Please note that the recording is only available to grantees that registered for the webinar:

Recording of Winter 2011 Project Directors meeting

Slides for Project Directors meeting

Text chat transcript of Project Directors meeting

Typically, my posts start with a link that indicates where an event, conference, or training occurred. This time, however, I cannot do that as Campus grantees had the opportunity to travel to one institute while three other campus institutes took place in a different part of the country.

The southern region of the United States hosted three out of four campus institutes the week of February 7, 2011.  Atlanta had the honor of hosting a phenomenal team of trainers on judicial affairs and designing survivor driven campus student conduct policies on sexual misconduct organized by the Mississippi Coalition Against Sexual Assault (MSCASA). Meanwhile, Lexington, Kentucky served as the backdrop for the Kentucky Domestic Violence Association to lead the institute on Mandatory Education & Orientation.  The culturally rich and vibrant city of New Orleans welcomed grantees for the coordinated community response institute hosted by the CALCASA.  A few states over in Oklahoma City, a little bit mid-west with a dash of southern, East Central University hosted the campus law enforcement/security training.

The Winter 2011 Training & Technical Assistance Institutes mark the first time in the Campus Grants Program where institutes were topic/minimum standard specific.  The June 2010 Institute in Las Vegas gave grantees an idea of what it would be to focus on minimum standards by having entire workshop sessions address one of six key areas critical to achieving the grant’s objectives.

Working for two or three days with colleagues to further your understanding, skills and resources related to meeting a grant standard is no easy feat, much less when combined with travel, destination distractions, and hotel rooms that don’t look a thing like home.  The restructured Campus Institutes weren’t without their hiccups, but they served as a valuable learning opportunity for the TA providers excited and re-energized to organize the next Campus Institute the week of June 20th.

Here is an article by Wendy Murphy, adjunct professor at New England School of Law and leading expert on violence against women and criminal justice policy, looking at the expected Title IX advisory on campus sexual assault by the Obama administration.  Click here.

Copyright Associated Press

Nineteen new campuses arrived in Washington, D.C. as part of the United States Department of Justice (DOJ), Office on Violence Against Women (OVW) Campus Grants New Orientation Meeting.  Orientation is an opportunity for new recipients of the OVW Grant to Reduce Sexual Assault, Domestic Violence, Dating Violence and Stalking on Campus to understand (1) learn the grant objective (2) meet the coalition of technical assistance providers (3) how to navigate federal government grant management systems, and (4) engage with colleagues from across the United States combatting sexual violence on campus.

January marks observance of Stalking Awareness Month for the eighth year in a row.  Stalking affects an estimated 3.4 million adults and 3 in 4 stalking victims are stalked by someone they know.  Join the National Center for Victims of Crime/Stalking Resource Center and The Office on Violence Against Women in increasing awareness of stalking.    http://www.stalkingawarenessmonth.org/

January 10, 2011 is the deadline for OVW Campus Grantees to register for the Winter Training & Technical Assistance Institute which is open to OVW Campus Grantees only. In December 2010, the OVW Campus Unit notified all Campus Grantees of which training they are scheduled to attend next month.  If your campus did not receive notification from the OVW Program Managers, we suggest you contact OVW immediately.

NOTE: The hotel information is not yet available for the Coordinated Community Response Institute.  We anticipate having the information available January 12.

Campus Training & Technical Assistance Institutes – location and contact information below:

Mandatory Education for Incoming Students in Lexington, KY jsayre@kdva.org

Campus Law Enforcement in Oklahoma City, OK llyon@ecok.edu

Judicial Affairs & Policy in Atlanta, GA ahart@mscasa.org

Coordinated Community Response in New Orleans, LA livia@calcasa.org

For the link to register and institute information, OVW grantees are encouraged to check the listserv or contact CALCASA livia@calcasa.org or 916.446.2520 ext. 303.

Registration for Winter 2011 Campus Training & Technical Assistance Institutes now open

Our colleagues working on college and university campuses to combat violence will be traveling to an exciting location to attend a training institute where they will meet with fellow recipients of the federal government grant to reduce violence against women from across the United States and engage with the training material that focuses on skills-building.

Campus Training & Technical Assistance Institutes (location and contact information)

Mandatory Education for Incoming Students in Lexington, KY jsayre@kdva.org

Campus Law Enforcement in Oklahoma City, OK llyon@ecok.edu

Judicial Affairs & Policy in Atlanta, GA ahart@mscasa.org

Coordinated Community Response in New Orleans, LA livia@calcasa.org

For the link to register and institute information, OVW grantees are encouraged to check the listserv or contact the Campus Program at CALCASA livia@calcasa.org.

New Campus Grantee Orientation will be in Washington, D.C.

The country’s capital will host the 2011 Campus Grants Program Orientation for the newly funded institutions of the United States Department of Justice, Office on Violence Against Women on January 19 – 20, 2011. Orientation is an opportunity for new grantees to learn about the programmatic and fiscal guidelines of the Campus Grant. Grantees also meet colleagues from across the United States working to end violence on campuses.

For the registration link, check the Project Directors listserv or contact livia@calcasa.org.

University of Wisconsin - Madison's initiative to combat sexual violence on campus

A guest post from Carmen Hotvedt, University of Wisconsin at Madison’s Project Director of the United States Department of Justice, Office on Violence Against Women Grant to Reduce Sexual Assault, Domestic Violence, and Stalking on Campus that discusses the collaborative approach to ending violence at the University of Wisconsin – Madison.  EVOC (pronounced e-voke) is the initiative to enhance efforts to address sexual assault, dating violence, domestic violence, and stalking through coordinated training, education, and social change efforts.

Launched after UW-Madison was awarded a US Dept. of Justice Office on Violence Against Women grant to address sexual assault, dating violence, domestic violence and stalking on college campuses, the EVOC (End Violence on Campus) initiative unites campus and community partners to create a safer campus.

Eighteen partners signed on to the funding agreement, including local and university police departments, victim service providers, the Chancellor and Provost, both state coalitions, Athletics, Housing, and the District Attorney’s office.  All EVOC partners are committed to enhancing prevention education, providing quality professional development for staff and faculty, and increasing student access to victim services.   Though the campus has had a long history of working collaboratively with community based victim service agencies to respond to sexual assault, the funding provided additional support for programming, staff, and professional consultation to develop a more coordinated front.

One EVOC partner, University Health Services, manages a comprehensive online violence prevention program for all first year students, using brief presentations, materials distribution, online education, and interactive peer-led programming.  Staff are currently working to develop strategies to ensure that every incoming first year student participates in these efforts as they enroll at UW-Madison. In the words of one first year student, “This program successfully brings needed attention to the problem of sexual assault, which is usually overlooked as a major issue at colleges and universities.”

While we do much work to help students have healthy, respectful relationships, faculty and staff also contribute to the campus climate.  Ongoing training on responding to victim disclosure as well as specialized training for law enforcement and judicial affairs officers have been strengthened and/or implemented since the EVOC initiative began.

In order to ensure that campus efforts not only adhered to research-based practice but also campus need, many EVOC partners participated in a needs assessment over the past year to alleviate barriers to victims getting help.  Conducting a comprehensive needs assessment is a lengthy process, but allowed our partners to get a 360 degree view of services, needs, and areas for growth. Results were presented to EVOC partners, who were then asked, as a community, to identify the key areas that they would commit to addressing in the next 3-5 years.

As we will continue to meet the minimum standards of our funding and provide services to meet our campus needs, we will specifically do them through the following lenses:

Alcohol: address the role alcohol plays in preventing people from getting help

Social Norms: address the victim blaming attitudes and behaviors that violence seem legitimate or accepted

Education: make prevention education and victim services accessible to all

Navigating the University: make the matrix of services available and more accessible.

If you would like more information about the UW-Madison EVOC initiative or our campus needs assessment, please contact us at violenceprevention@uhs.wisc.edu

Working in the sexual assault field, we know that there are also male survivors in the community.  On campus, being a male and sexual assaulted in a fraternity can contribute to the silence that we know exists.  Here is a report from Shira Tarrant for Ms. Magazine on male sexual assault on campus and the continued issue of silence.  While this continues to happen, there are several great programs nationwide that work to address this issue and bring to light the issue of sexual assault as an issue that not only affects women or men, but as an issue that affects everyone in our society.

Our society is scared to talk about sexual assault, our society doesn’t know how to talk about sexual assault, there is no discourse for sexual assault. If the question is, could Drake do a better job of raising awareness about sexual assault? The answer is yes. But, as much as this is a fault on Drake, this is a fault on our society as a whole- survivor of sexual assault.

Here is a report on campus sexual assault and steps being taken to addresss the issue.  Joseph Shapiro, a correspondent with NPR‘s Investigative Unit, reports on addressing sexual assault on college campuses.  To listen to report, click here.

“There are signs that government is taking on the problem of campus sexual assault with a new seriousness. The United States Department of Education is announcing “voluntary resolution agreements” with two schools that had been criticized for the way they’d handled assaults. And new legislation in Congress would expand and clarify the responsibility of colleges and universities.”

On December 2, 2010, the United States Department of Justice, Office on Violence Against Women Campus Unit announced the coalition of specialized technical assistance providers that will work with recipients of the Grant to Reduce Sexual Assault, Domestic Violence, Dating Violence and Stalking on college and university campuses across the United States, Guam and Puerto Rico.

CALCASA is excited to be part of the Campus Program TA Team which is comprised of providers that will specialize in one of the four OVW Campus Grant minimum requirements.

Kentucky Domestic Violence Association: Orientation & Education Programming

East Central University: Campus Security & Law Enforcement Training

Mississippi Coalition Against Sexual Assault: Judicial Affairs/Disciplinary Board Training

CALCASA: Coordinated Community Response Team

To download the presentation materials, click here.

To read the text chat, click here.

To watch the video recording, click here.  Note: this works for attendees that registered for the webinar.

If you have any questions about the webinar materials, please contact campus@calcasa.org.

Students Active For Ending Rape (SAFER), the only organization that fights sexual violence and rape culture by empowering student-led campaigns to reform college sexual assault policies, has come up with another ingenious way of engaging students to end sexual violence.

SAFER’s Winter Break Challenge asks college students to use their time during winter break to hold their campus accountable for preventing, reducing and responding to sexual violence on campus.  The challenge helps in updating a database of college/university policies addressing sexual violence.

Spread the word by emailing, blogging, or tweeting about the Winter Break Challenge!

As many of us break to celebrate upcoming holidays, please take a moment to recognize and help support this incredible campaign at Rutgers University Center for Women’s Global Leadership.

The 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence is an international campaign originating from the first Women’s Global Leadership Institute sponsored by the Center for Women’s Global Leadership in 1991. Participants chose the dates November 25- International Day Against Violence Against Women- and December 10- International Human Rights Day- in order to symbolically link violence against women and human rights and to emphasize that such violence is a violation of human rights. This 16-day period also highlights other significant dates including November 29, International Women Human Rights Defenders Day, December 1, World AIDS Day, and December 6, which marks the Anniversary of the Montreal Massacre.The 16 Days Campaign has been used as an organizing strategy by individuals and groups around the world to call for the elimination of all forms of violence against women by:

• raising awareness about gender-based violence as a human rights issue at the local, national, regional and international levels
• strengthening local work around violence against women
• establishing a clear link between local and international work to end violence against women
• providing a forum in which organizers can develop and share new and effective strategies
• demonstrating the solidarity of women around the world organizing against violence against women
• creating tools to pressure governments to implement promises made to eliminate violence against women

For more information please visit:  http://16dayscwgl.rutgers.edu/

National Coalition of Anti-Violence Program

On October 26, 2010, the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs released the Report on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer (LGBTQ) Domestic/Intimate Partner Violence in the United States in 2009.

Key findings include:

• “Total reported cases are up in light of decrease in staff/organizational services available to provide services and report on the data;
• Reported incidents of LGBTQ domestic/intimate partner violence are increasingly deadly;
• Young adults make up 1/3 of reported cases
• Barriers to reporting and accessing services may have increased for undocumented immigrants;
• Reports to police are up, but so are reports of police misconduct and missarrest” (NCAVP 2010)

The report also provides recommendations to policy makers as well as to community organizations and service providers to make LGBTQ inclusive policies and organizational programming an integral part of the systems approach to combat violence.

Media Release for the Report on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer (LGBTQ) Domestic/Intimate Partner Violence in the United States in 2009

Full Report on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer (LGBTQ) Domestic/Intimate Partner Violence in the United States in 2009

matrix of intersecting identities is starting point for understanding complexity of anti-oppression work

Atlanta, GA – Last weekend, my colleague Cindy Marroquin and I had the opportunity to attend the 2010 National Conference on Sexual Assault in Our Schools to present “Addressing Sexual Violence on Campus through Feminist and Liberation Theories.”  Set in downtown Atlanta, the conference allowed us to meet non-DOJ/OVW Campus grantees doing great work across the United States.

During the workshop, Cindy and I engaged with a group of conference participants eager to discuss anti-oppression work, privilege, power and intersecting identities.  In 60 minutes, we covered a range of topics with the goal of sharing the resources/solutions campus advocates (across disciplines) have created to end sexual violence on campus.

On Tuesday, October 26th, 2010, Dr. Kim Lonsway, Director of Research at End Violence Against Women, International joined the Campus Program, California Coalition Against Sexual Assault (CALCASA), to discuss “Unfounded Cases and False Reports: A Complex Problem.”

If you have trouble accessing the materials for this month’s webinar, please contact the Campus Program by emailing livia@calcasa.org.

Unfounded Cases and False Reports: A Complex Problem presentation (pdf)

Oregon Sexual Assault Taskforce Paper on False Reports

Statements Made By Victims (EVAW)

Online Training Institute for Sexual Assault Investigation

Video/audio recording of “Unfounded cases and false reports” webinar

By Jordi Gasso

At least two online petitions urging University administrators to take action against the DKE fraternity have sprung up since members of the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity chanted offensive statements on Old Campus Wednesday night.

One asks University President Richard Levin to publicly denounce the behavior of the DKE pledges during an initiation ritual, where they chanted and shouted phrases such as “No means yes, yes means anal” and “My name is Jack, I’m a necrophiliac, I f— dead women.”

According to the blog, yaleresponse.wordpress.com, which hosts the petition, the petition is being spearheaded by a group of unspecified Yale alumni. Their petition references similar previous episodes — such as the Zeta Psi “We Love Yale Sluts” incident in 2008 and last year’s “Preseason Scouting Report,” which ranked 53 freshman women based on appearance — to prove the need for an official Yale response.

“By not offering an unequivocal denunciation from the Office of the President, the university communicates indifference to DKE’s actions,” the petition says.

Change.org, a website dedicated to social change initiatives and advocacy issues, has launched another petition motivated by the DKE incident, started by Dartmouth graduate and change.org editor Alex DiBranco.

The petition, titled “Tell Yale to Discipline Fraternity for Pro-Rape Chant,” asserts that the dialogue between DKE and the Women’s Center “isn’t enough,” and also calls for Levin and Yale College Dean Mary Miller to take disciplinary measures against the fraternity. The petition also supports Yale feminist magazine Broad Recognition’s request for “real administrative action.”

The Yale Response and change.org petitions have garnered 1,094 and 1,375 signatures respectively, as of 8:40 p.m. Tuesday. Elizabeth Deutsch ’11, business coordinator for the Women’s Center, said the Center is not involved in either of these petitions.

The following post appears courtesy of Laurie O. Robinson, Assistant Attorney General, Office of Justice Programs. Today, I had the opportunity to speak at the National Meeting on Alcohol and Other Drug Abuse and Violence Prevention in Higher Education sponsored by the Department of Education. Together, the Departments of Justice and Education are addressing the important issue of campus security and ensuring that the latest crime prevention strategies are in place on our campuses. In the words of Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, “No school can be a great school until it is a safe school first.”

Even though the crime rate on most college campuses is well below the rate in the general population, the recent shooting at University of Texas in Austin reminds us that when crime does occur, it has the potential to be catastrophic.

Attorney General Eric Holder and I are committed to enhancing student welfare as we focus on ways to develop effective crime prevention and intervention strategies.  Our campus safety efforts are helped by the Clery Act signed into law 20 years ago.  This law requires colleges to disclose information about crime on campus and to provide basic rights and services to victims of sexual assault.

The Clery Act is one positive step in the right direction and has advanced the debate on how to address campus violence.  A recent project funded by the Office of Justice Programs’ (OJP) Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA), in partnership with the Major Cities Chiefs Association, surveyed 56 urban police departments and 177 campus public safety departments.  This survey found a great disparity in the level of communication and coordination between local police and campus policies.

To improve this important partnership, BJA has published a set of campus security guidelines (PDF) written by the Major Cities Chiefs Association. These guidelines address issues ranging from risk assessment and emergency response plans to interoperable communications and media relations.  In addition, the Department’s Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) office has trained more than 700 campus officials to help them identify individuals that may pose a threat to public safety and give them the help they need to avoid violence.

I mentioned earlier that the rates of most campus crimes are well below crime levels in the general population.  There is one exception – sexual assault.  OJP’s National Institute of Justice (NIJ) reported that a campus with 10,000 women could see as many as 350 rapes a year.  The underreporting of this crime makes it difficult to measure  –   we know 90 percent of sexual assaults are perpetrated by an acquaintance of the victim and alcohol is often involved.  I believe the key to addressing this issue is to implement NIJ’s recommendations on how campuses can respond to sexual assault, including ensuring adequate services are available, developing written response protocols, and educating students about how to prevent assaults.

Since 1999, the Department’s Office on Violence Against Women (OVW) has actively worked to address campus sexual violence through the $98 million in assistance it has provided to 300 institutions of higher education.  In March 2010, I joined several of my  Justice Department  colleagues in a tour of campuses across the country to raise awareness about these crimes on college campuses.

We will continue these efforts—because a campus is a community and, like any community, the ability of its members to grow and thrive begins with a sense of security.

Stonybrook, NY-  Recipient of the Grants To Reduce Domestic Violence, Dating Violence, Sexual Assault and Stalking from the U.S. Department of Justice, Office on Violence Against Women, SUNY Stonybrook has paved the way for victims of violence in stepping forward to report sexual violence, domestic violence and stalking on campus.  In a recent visit to Stonybrook, the  Center for Prevention and Outreach (CPO) program lead by Dr. Smita Majumdar Das, has been able to create various programs and collaborated with other departments, including the creation of a survey to ask students their experience regarding violence on campus.  The results provided Dr. Das with a framework  on methods to target outreach to students on campus.  As a result, students have been able to find services, report and feel safe in approaching university staff in reporting any violence.  The grant has also allowed many of the collaborative partners, such as Athletics, to better assist students by changing culture and demonstrating that sexual violence is not tolerated.  For more information visit SUNY Stonybrook.

Sin By Silence screening at Pacific Lutheran University

I’m floored by the sheer courage and strength of survivors when I hear their journey identifying root causes of oppression and healing.  Sin By Silence, a film about the first inmate initiated domestic violence group in the history of U.S. prisons, screened to an audience of PLU students, staff and Tacoma community members the evening before the start of the Paving a Rocky Road: Removing Barriers to Men’s Engagement conference, hosted by Pacific Lutheran University (PLU) Men Against Violence in Tacoma, Washington.

Sin By Silence looks at the legal system’s response to domestic violence through the voices of women survivors, their children, psychologists and law enforcement.  One of the women featured in the documentary graciously attended last night’s screening to speak about her journey as well as field questions about the filmmaking process, advocacy, and identifying signs of an unhealthy relationship.

While watching the film and hearing the survivor address the mostly college student audience, I reflected on the significance and relevance in contextualizing identities and histories in order to heal and support each other.  Women that are incarcerated experience a level of oppression that requires our full attention as much as the violence happening outside of prisons.  The experience is further compounded when the individual is of color, an immigrant, poor, elderly or has a disability, to name a few identities that prisons, like many institutions in the United States, fail to adequately address needs and services.

The documentary not only raises questions surrounding violence, gender norms, law enforcement, political environments, public/mental health, but also highlights a community-driven solution toward healing. Invigorated by the women’s strength in the awakening of their response to violence, I am eager to engage in dialogues for the next few days that will consider the intersectionality of oppression, identities and agency in the movement against gender violence.

University Heights, OH – John Carroll University (JCU) is a private, Catholic and Jesuit campus outside of Cleveland, Ohio with an undergraduate student population of 2,987.  In the last two years, JCU has experienced, participated and witnessed a shift in preventing and responding to sexual violence.  Dr. Sherri Crahen, Project Director and Amanda Rolf, Program Coordinator have worked to build a safer environment for students by building infrastructure while improving existing resources.  Last year, the Violence Prevention and Action Center, housed in the counseling center, opened to provide comprehensive prevention programming addressing sexual violence.

Violence Prevention and Action Center at John Carroll University

Faculty support at John Carroll University is on the rise since awarded the grant.  Dr. Sheri Young, Department of Psychology, shared her excitement about current and future collaborations with students and faculty on how to institutionalize the campus community response to sexual violence by integrating the topic into existing courses.  The CALCASA site visit coincided with the address of the new dean of the College of Arts and Science.  In her outline, Dean Colleran referred to the college’s direction of using a multi-disciplinary approach in addressing crisis management, which serves as additional institutional support in the campus wide efforts to end sexual violence.

With the grant, JCU has successfully collaborated with campus and community partners in making a safer campus.  In addition to increasing programming around prevention, JCU also revised the campus policy on sexual misconduct and orientation for new students.  Student involvement has also increased in the last few years with the creation of men against violence group forming this semester being a notable result in addition to the women’s collective that serves as a space for women to share their experiences and express opinions on a variety of issues including gender based violence.

Tacoma, Washington – Pacific Lutheran University’s Men Against Violence (MAV) Conference on October 14-16 with Keynote Speaker Dr. Rachel Griffin, Assistant Professor of Speech Communication at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale.  Her interests include intercultural communication, critical race theory, gender violence, critical pedagogy and black feminist thought.  Dr. Michael Kimmel, a researcher and writer on men and masculinity, will also be a keynote speaker at the conference.  For more information, visit the MAV Conference website.

Dr. Kimberly A. Lonsway with End Violence Against Women (EVAW) International

On Tuesday, October 26, 2010, the Campus Program at the California Coalition Against Sexual Assault (CALCASA) will host a webinar on “Unfounded Cases & False Reports: A Complex Problem” facilitated by Dr. Kim Lonsway.  Unfounded cases and false reporting present complex questions for communities responding to sexual assault.  Dr. Lonsway will not only examine questions of response but will also consider the consequences of unfounded cases and false reports and review best practice recommendations.

Dr. Kim Lonsway is the Director of Research at End Violence Against Women International where she develops grant proposals, conducts original research, develops training content and resource materials, and provides training for multidisciplinary audiences of researchers and practitioners in law enforcement, victim advocacy, health care, prosecution, and related disciplines. Dr. Lonsway earned her Ph.D. in the Department of Psychology at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. She then served for two years as a post-doctoral research fellow at the interdisciplinary American Bar Foundation in Chicago, Illinois. Her research focuses on sexual violence and the criminal justice and community response system, and she has volunteered for over ten years as a victim advocate for rape crisis centers in two different communities.

To register, please check the Project Directors listserv. If you have any trouble registering, contact the Campus Program.

Madison, WI – In 2008, the University of Wisconsin at Madison was awarded the Reduce Sexual Assault, Domestic/Dating Violence & Stalking Campus Grant by the United States Department of Justice (DOJ), Office on Violence Against Women (OVW).  Housed at the University Health Services, the OVW Campus Grant is led by Carmen Hotvedt, Project Director and Shira Phelps, Project Coordinator.  Their passion, commitment and thoughtfulness is demonstrated not only in their collaborative and community-driven approach toward ending sexual violence on campus, but ultimately the relationships they have cultivated over time with campus and community stakeholders.

One unique characteristic that makes the University of Wisconsin at Madison different from other campuses funded to end sexual violence, is that the institution does not have any mandatory requirements for enrolled students.  No requirements for a public state institution seems atypical to someone that attended a large public research institution that constantly redefines the limits of bureaucracy.  However, the notion of shared governance where staff, faculty and students participate in the decision-making process relating to operations of the institution traces its origins to the participatory ideology embraced by the UW Madison communities of the 1960′s.

Working in UW Madison’s democratic climate presents opportunities and challenges that students, staff, faculty and community partners have embraced.  One such measure is Promoting Awareness, Victim Empowerment (PAVE), a student organization that works to end prevent sexual and dating violence through education and activism.  During the site visit, I sat in on an evening class offered by the School of Social Work called PAVE Peer Education where students engage in peer-to-peer education to gain knowledge around sexual assault, dating violence and stalking as well how to facilitate conversations regarding sexual violence.

UW Madison is one of the many campuses that have taken steps to institutionalize a community response to end sexual violence by using a multi-faceted approach that actively involves students, staff and faculty.  I left Madison excited to hear about future campus collaborations as they continue to raise awareness, promote activism and provide inclusive and culturally relevant survivor-centered services and resources.

Riverside, CA – When an incident of sexual violence is a reported, a chain of responders and services come into play.  When sexual violence is reported on a college/university campus, an additional institution with a hierarchy of stakeholders are legally responsible to provide adequate and timely services to survivors as well as corresponding disciplining of the student assailant.  Coordinated community response teams involve a multi-disciplinary response that hinges on partnerships with diverse campus and community stakeholders.

As the OVW Campus Grant states, “coordinated community response teams and task forces should reflect the wide variety of organizations that are involved in campus life in order to involve all the different entities who have a role in meeting the needs of victims of violence against women on campus and holding offenders accountable.”  Building and sustaining a CCRT is challenging, daunting and inherently critical to combatting sexual violence and creating safer communities.

Over the course of four days in early August, Donna and Paul visited the University of California at San Francisco, University of California at Irvine and University of California at Riverside to provide a foundation for effective response teams rooted in safety and communication with campus and community partners.  One day was devoted to meeting with the University of California Steering Committee, the leadership that drives the CCRT at each UC campus.  Meeting the diverse group of committed individuals across the state reminded me not only of the challenges that confront students, staff and faculty but ultimately the tremendous progress made to improve campus response to sexual violence.

The 2010 National Sexual Assault Conference (NSAC) — taking place Sept. 1-3 in Los Angeles — will welcome a diverse population largely due to the recipients of the National Scholarship. Survivors and underrepresented populations from across the United States and its territories have been awarded the opportunity to be in attendance.

Throughout the application process, I’ve been communicating with award recipients, and I have learned about the dedication and passion that many have for the field of violence against women as volunteers, employees of organizations or as community activist across our nation and the territories of Guam, Puerto Rico and the Mariana Islands.

National Scholarship awardees will bring a voice from rural, tribal and urban communities that will tell the stories of the challenges and triumphs in their respective areas of work to eradicate sexual violence against children, adults and elders. Their attendance will add to the dialogue and exchange of ideas to achieve the goal of empowerment and progress in the movement.

Lesbian relationships, like those that do not appear to adhere to the white heterosexual middle-class norms, have been misrepresented by the mainstream in the United States for decades.  Similarly, sexual violence has also been grossly misrepresented by the media.  Violence within lesbian communities more so.

The U.S. mainstream media features stories about lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender/queer (LGBTQ) communities through such mediums as:

(1) characters on scripted and reality shows;

(2) marriage for same-sex couples has become a rallying cry for mainstream LGBTQ organizations (which is not indicative nor reflective of the diversity of behaviors and opinions around state regulation of queer relationships) and;

(3) legislative efforts suggest the United States provides legal protections for individuals that self-identify as or are perceived to be LGBTQ when targeted in acts of violence

An article in The Washington Post describing an abusive relationship in the political circle of Washington, D.C. reminds us of the tremendous work we have in dismantling stereotypes and re/constructing narratives.  Judge Russell F. Canan sentenced Taylar Nuevelle, 41, to the maximum sentence under the court’s guidelines of 5 1/2 years for domestic violence of a her former partner, Judge Janet Albert.  In February 2010, a jury found Nuevelle guilty of stalking Judge Albert.

Merely having media representation of queer individuals and/or relationships mirrors what Sarah Schulman in Ties That Bind: Familial Homophobia and Its Consequences refers to as “falsely cod[ing] that work as progressive.  But, if the actual meaning and content of the specific representation is examined, many of these representations are retrograde” (2009).

What does the media articulate as suitable for public consumption?  The article lacks context surrounding domestic violence and stalking in lesbian relationships.  Such a gap further reinforces the second-class treatment the media deploys by portraying queer* relationships and/or individuals as pathological or lesser than heterosexual rather than using the opportunity to draw attention to unhealthy and unsafe relationships.  Mentioning the emotional trauma experienced by Judge Albert as a result of the abusive relationship does not make up for the lack of context, especially when choosing to end the article by quoting Nuevelle’s attorney, “The lesson of this is don’t have a bad breakup with a lesbian judge. It means you go to jail for 5 1/2 years.”

In other words, abusive relationships go unnoticed unless one person in the relationship holds a position in court?  Abusive relationships are the norm and should continue to go unnoticed, unreported, and therefore unchanged, otherwise people are punished?  Latif Doman, Nuevelle’s attorney, seems to discourage readers/public from challenging relationship norms.  For those of us in the field of ending gender-based/sexual violence, Mr. Doman reminds us of the importance in developing partnerships with allies including attorneys, judges, law enforcement and journalists so as to counter the victim-blaming narrative so often portrayed in the media and legal system.  Reframing the narrative of relationship violence is critical work when prosecuting perpetrators/abusers and protecting survivors as a means of intervention.

*In this post, I used queer as an umbrella term to refer to individuals and/or relationships that are not defined or self-identified as heterosexual.

On May 25, 2010, Erica Olsen, Technology Safety Specialist, at the National Network to End Domestic Violence and Valenda Applegarth with the Greater Boston Legal Services co-facilitated “Technology and Safety on Campus.”  Below is the presentation in pdf.

Technology and Safety on Campus

College and university students organizing to combat sexual violence use a multi-tiered approach to advocate for themselves, their peers, and for future generations of students. Some students use Take Back the Night marches which draw attention to sexual assault and other forms of sexual violence. Performance theatre, dance, art and film are hugely popular with college students when looking to convey stories of survivors. However educational, powerful and provocative such strategies are to those engaged in the work or to observers, they require little to no institutional support.

Gaining institutional support is central when collaboratively developing a victim/survivor centered sexual assault policy that outlines what constitutes sexual violence, sanctions for perpetrators and campus/community resources for survivors and/or those that have witnessed violence. Students Active For Ending Rape (SAFER) is an organization based in New York City that fights sexual violence and rape culture by empowering student-led campaigns to reform college sexual assault policies.

To learn more about SAFER, listen to the interview with SAFER’s Sarah Martino, Communications Coordinator and Christine Borges, Policy and Research Coordinator. [podcast]http://calcasa.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/20100728-SAFER.mp3[/podcast]

Stanford, CA – Saunie Schuster and W. Scott Lewis, partners at the National Education for Higher Education Risk Management (NCHERM), led the National Institute on Responding to Sexual Misconduct, a two day training at Stanford University on how to develop responsive sexual misconduct policies and training hearing boards.  Participants that currently serve on their judicial affairs/disciplinary boards attended the Institute to enhance their capacity building around sexual misconduct cases.  The first day focused on understanding the federal laws that provide the legal framework for college campuses to address sexual misconduct policy.  On the second day, participants from across California, Oregon and Washington discussed challenges surrounding training hearing boards and engaged in case scenarios to hone their skills as hearing officers.

On July 27, 2010, the Campus Program hosted a webinar on “Creating an effective protocol to intervene in violence against women” led by Dr. Peter J. Meagher at Reed College.

Webinar Materials

Text chat transcription

Webinar recording (NOTE: recording starts from slide 13)

Creating an Effective Protocol to Intervene in Violence Against Women

Earlier this week, a colleague forwarded me “Surprise! Immigration is a Woman’s Issue” written by Gloria Steinem and Pramila Jayapal with the Women’s Media Center.  Steinam and Pramila argue that immigration is a woman’s issue because women and children are severely impacted by workplace discrimination, gender-based/sexual violence, a backlogged immigration system, and ineligibility for various services including health insurance.  The authors challenge the country’s inaccurate portrayal of immigrants benefiting from the resources in the United States by shedding light about how recent immigrants are impacted by systematic factors.

Some key points from the article include:

• “Many female immigrants are fleeing domestic violence, female genital mutilation, and other human rights abuses against females in their own countries.  Female immigrants are much more likely to have been the victims of violence than to be its perpetrators — just as are females in general.
• Female immigrants suffer even more workplace wage discrimination than do their male counterparts. The threat of deportation makes them fearful of reporting sexual assault, sexual harassment, domestic violence and other punishments that are overwhelmingly female.
• Women and children make up more than 90% of the thousands of unwilling immigrants brought here every year by sex traffickers, yet such victims are far more likely to end up in prison than are the traffickers.
• The average immigrant woman is better educated than her male counterpart, even when both are in low-paying jobs. Women are also more likely to be students in English language classes – many classrooms are as much as 70% female – because they want to instruct or to keep up with their children.
• Though immigrants who are permanent legal residents pay the same taxes as do citizens, they are not allowed to receive Medicaid for five years. This punishes women disproportionately because they are child bearers and caregivers It also endangers the public in general by reducing the level of health in schools and workplaces. Nonetheless, this prohibition was enshrined in the recent healthcare reform bill.”

How do we integrate this knowledge into our prevention and intervention efforts to end sexual violence on campus?  The relevance isn’t only for institutions with large immigrant student populations, but for all campuses given that a cornerstone of higher education is to further prepare students in our increasingly diverse community.  Institutions need to, if they haven’t already, assessed their outreach, service delivery, campus security, response protocol, and disciplinary policies for accessibility to underserved communities.

Sexual violence is hugely under-reported throughout the United States.  To combat sexual violence, it is critical to work with partners and allies in order to create a more inclusive campus environment.  That community-level work, however, starts first on an individual basis, whereby one self-reflects and assesses one’s own awareness and biases around immigration, privilege, and history.

Resources

• Immigrant Women and Sexual Violence
• National Network to End Sexual Violence Against Immigrant Women
• Multicultural Efforts to End Sexual Violence at Purdue University
• Disposable Domestics: Immigrant Women Workers in the Global Factory by Grace Chang

If you have resources relating to immigrant women and sexual violence, please post them or contact us so we can share the information on our website by emailing livia@calcasa.org.

On July 13, 2010, the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs (NCAVP), the coalition of programs that document and advocate for victims of anti-Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ) and anti-HIV/AIDS violence/harassment, domestic violence, sexual assault, police misconduct and other forms of victimization, released the 2010 report of hate violence perpetrated against people that self-identify as LGBTQ and were reported in 2009.

Key findings from the report include:

Murders at second-highest rate in a decade;

Spike in anti-LGBTQ violence at time of federal hate crimes law passage;

Economic crisis depletes resources for LGBTQ survivors of violence

For the full National Report on Anti-LGBTQ hate violence, click here.  To read the press release issued by the NCAVP, click here.

Resource

For individuals, groups, and/or communities interested in starting an anti-violence program, becoming a member of the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs or if you live in a region where there are no organizations addressing LGBTQ violence issues and you need help or are interested in getting involved, contact NCAVP at info@ncavp.org or 212.714.1184. They can also be reached via a 24 hour bilingual (English & Spanish) Hotline at 212.714.1141.

In the global struggle against gender based violence and HIV/AIDS, the two are inextricably intertwined as pressing human rights and public health issues that cross race, class, gender, sexual orientation, nationality, age, and ability/disability.  Sexual violence increases a victim’s risk of contracting sexually transmitted infections, including HIV. Today, the Obama administration unveiled the national strategy to combat HIV/AIDS which includes:

• “Broad goals as well as dozens of directives for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, and other federal agencies. Those steps include developing standards to evaluate care, investigating community programs to see whether they’re effective and simplifying grant applications.
• The Bureau of Prisons would expand HIV screening of inmates, and the Justice Department would fast-track investigations of discrimination involving those with HIV.”

One notable area of concern is that no additional federal funding has been allotted to support the National Strategy.

“With new infections exceeding 50,000 a year, there may not be enough money to help provide all patients with the drugs they need.  Last week, the Department of Health and Human Services announced an allocation of $25 million to help states in need.” – The Los Angeles Times

How, if at all, does your campus support efforts in making the link between sexual violence and HIV/AIDS, organizationally, campus-wide and with community partners?  When engaging in discussions surrounding the stigma and prejudice survivors of sexual violence experience, does HIV/AIDS ever come up as another layer of a public health concern?  How do your health and education partners integrate sexual violence and HIV/AIDS in prevention/education programming?

Resources

Click here to read the full National HIV/AIDS Strategy released by the White House.

The United Nations Development Fund For Women: Gender & HIV/AIDS

The University of Puerto Rico is one of the four public flagship systems that currently receive funding from the United States Department of Justice, Office on Violence Against Women to work towards ending sexual violence.  The University of Puerto Rico system serves a predominately Spanish speaking (and increasingly multilingual) student population across 10 campuses to reduce sexual assault, domestic/dating violence and stalking on campus in Puerto Rico. The other flagship systems that receive OVW funding include the University of Iowa (3 campuses), University of California (10 campuses) and East Central University (5 campuses).

Maria Del Pilar Rodriguez, Project Director and Maria Cristina Pacheco, Education Director, took time during the Summer Campus Training & Technical Assistance Institute in Las Vegas to share their thoughts in Spanish about their experiences working on the OVW grant at the University of Puerto Rico.

In addition to viewing the Institutes as an opportunity to network with and learn from colleagues in the field, Maria Del Pilar and Maria Cristina discussed how the University of Puerto Rico also serves as a resource for campuses that have Spanish-speaking students (especially of Puerto Rican descent). It is critical to make materials culturally congruent to marginalized populations, communities of color, international students, and immigrants are often not the primary groups services are designed for when combatting sexual violence on campus.

On July 27th, the Campus Program is scheduled to have a webinar on “Creating an effective protocol to intervene in violence against women” at 11.00 a.m. (PST).  Peter J. Meagher, at Reed College, will discuss how campuses can develop a sustainable and effective protocol to address sexual violence on college campuses.

Webinar Description
Violence against women in all its forms is one of the most underreported crimes on campus. This webinar will explore impediments to reporting and will present effective and sensitive strategies to assist administrators as well as staff at residence halls, campus security and campus health centers to more effectively respond to students who report experiencing sexual assault, intimate partner violence or stalking.

Speaker Biography
Peter J. Meagher, PhD, is Associate Dean of Students at Reed College in Portland, Oregon. Dr. Meagher has led training sessions in colleges and other educational settings that have focused on male violence since the late 1980s. Dr. Meagher was the Project Director for the Campus Safety Project from 2000 to 2006 at Edgewood College in Madison, Wisconsin. While at Edgewood, he was active in all aspects of the project including creating comprehensive educational programs, coordinating the revision of the Sexual Misconduct Policy, implementing response protocols and overseeing all project evaluation activities. Before working at Edgewood, he worked at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater on a project working with athletes on alcohol, drugs and dating violence. Dr. Meagher has a passion for social justice issues and enjoys promoting the growth and development of college students.

To register for the webinar, please check the project directors listserv or check with your campus project director.  The webinar is open to current recipients of the United States Department of Justice, Office on Violence Against Women Grant to Reduce Sexual Assault, Domestic/Dating Violence and Stalking on Campus.  If you are not a grantee or cannot attend the webinar on July 27th, you can access materials from the webinar by visiting the Campus Program page at the CALCASA site after July 28th.

The Summer Campus 2010 TTI, sponsored by OVW in partnership with CALCASA, hosted the workshop “Addressing Issues of Violence Against Women in Faith-Based Institutions.” Amongst the many campuses that are funded through the OVW campus program grant, there are several that are faith based such as University of Sioux Falls, Pacific Lutheran University and St. Mary’s College.

During this workshop, the presenter, Venida Rodman Jenkins discussed secular versus sacred language that at times can cause friction in communicating how to address violence against women on campus. She mentioned that although we are saying the same thing, word choice may give the impression we are not on the same page. This was a very relevant point not only for faith-based institutions, but every campus that is doing this work that deals with challenges in communication. The misunderstanding is prompted by generational gaps, racial distinctions or moral codes. The differences in language has the potential to breed the sense of opposition, instead of unification.

After speaking with folks that attended the TTI, I found that the one sound solution is to create a safe space for similar campuses to voice openly their concerns, not as a venting session, but with the intent of removing the feeling of isolation for the sake of moving toward the solution of adherence to listening and creating a line of communication that the sacred and the secular feel comfortable speaking.

AMC 2010 Closing Ceremony

Detroit, MI – After wrapping up the Summer 2010 Campus Training & Technical Assistance Institute in Las Vegas, I caught a red-eye flight to attend the annual Allied Media Conference (AMC).  Held at the campus of Wayne State University near Detroit’s downtown, the AMC drew “people involved with do-it-yourself media, alternative media makers, [and those] interested in using participatory media as a strategy for social justice organizing.”  Certainly a cultural and geographic shift trading in the western desert for the midwestern city that has struggled for years to rebuild itself.  For the next three days, I learned how local communities in Detroit are working tirelessly to improve living conditions for themselves, their families, and neighbors.

The AMC offered participants a variety of tracks designed to generate and actively engage in discussions surrounding particular areas of interest ranging from disability justice, indigenous media, creating safe communities, Medios Caminantes (the Spanish language media track), Trans & Queer Youth, and Media Policy to name a few.  The AMC’s notion of media (multiple forms of communication including print and web-based journalism, radio, writing, art, and music) has come to expand over the years which is incredibly refreshing given the ever-increasing power and range that technology has in transforming individuals and communities.

Each workshop I attended either provided participants in opportunity to learn hands-on the technology at hand (such as community mapping) and/or encouraged folks to identify needs, resources and network in order to build capacity, knowledge and access. Each workshop, keynote speaker, artist, facilitator, conference participant I heard or met, reinvigorated my commitment to building communities by evoking a language rooted in idealism, realism, and practicality.

Transformative art work at AMC 2010

Collaborative mapping, a visual representation of needs and/or assets in a given community, caught my interest given its relationship to the work I do at CALCASA.  Some examples of community mapping include: Philadelphia Place (storytelling collaboration of peoples and events in Philadelphia), Toronto Trees (uses trees as landmarks in tours of Toronto), and Green Map (identifies areas with green resources). Throughout the community mapping workshop, I frequently thought of Dorothy Edwards’ intervention to end sexual violence.  To simplify: sexual violence = red dots.  Bystander intervention = green dots.  Red and green dots spread across the United States, ideally the green dots surpassing the number of red dots and ultimately covering the country.

How can Green Dot, or any other intervention for that matter, translate itself from an initially theoretical conceptualization and practical approach to potentially technological soundboard/card conceived as a community map to further illustrate the urgency to combat sexual violence as communities?  How can survivors, bystanders, educators, and others engage with the data?  This is a question I’m struggling with and would like to hear your take on community mapping of sexual violence on college campuses.

Save the date: June 23 – 26, 2011 in Detroit for the next AMC.

Coach Joe Ehrmann delivers his keynote address at the Campus Training & Technical Assistance Institute in Las Vegas.

Yesterday was the final day of CALCASA’s Campus Training & Technical Assistance Institute in Las Vegas. Present were about 500 attendees from college campuses and community agencies — these folks are ready and eager to do what it takes to end sexual violence.

Joe Ehrmann, from Coach for America, delivered one of the plenary sessions. He opened his speech by acknowledging that he was looking at an audience that represented hope. My first thought: Hope can’t be measured. It’s a word thrown around to mask inaction. Don’t get me wrong, his speech was inspiring. I felt motivated to become part of the solution to end destructive and damaging myths and stereotypes that are perpetuated by culture. But I was still struggling with the word hope. I felt as if that word made it easier to say, “Well, nice try,” when goals aren’t realized.

However, yesterday afternoon, I had my reality put in check. I was conducting an interview with Dr. Dorothy Edwards & Jennifer Sayre about their Green Dot training and, again, the word hope came up. Dr. Edwards said that the one thing she wants people to walk away with from the training is hope. Maybe I rolled my eyes, and she sensed that I needed to hear what she said next:

“We can be holding the solution in our hand, but if we don’t believe it, we will not inspire people to take it on. Those of us that are leading this work have to peel back those layers of fatigue and tired. We’ve seen victim after victim, and it’s hard to even imagine a different world. And we’ve got to step in and hold in our mind’s eye a vision — a crystallized vision — of this can happen. These numbers can come down, and it can happen as a direct result of my work. If we can hold on to that, if we can truly believe that, folks will follow us. People don’t act if they don’t believe what they’re doing will make a difference. So we’ve got to paint this picture that what you do will make a difference. We can bring the numbers down. My favorite reference is the notion that when Martin Luther King was standing up there at the great mall in Washington, D.C., he didn’t say, ‘I’ve got a great body of research.’ He said, ‘I have a dream.’ When he talked about that dream, he inspired a nation. We have to do the same thing.”

Wow, amazing. This completely changed my outlook. How can we begin to make change if we can’t even fill ourselves with a sense of hope to see a better future? Dr. Edwards’ words set me up for the endnote speaker Tony Porter who talked about how men need to understand the responsibility they have to challenge many of the norms that define manhood. I think that without my interview with Dr. Edwards, I might have walked away with a sense of false hope. But I do hope — with everything inside me — that the type of manhood Porter talked about becomes the norm. As Porter says in the above video: “We can really redefine the aspects of manhood that will then create a culture where humanity is the issue, where women are treated equal to men. And that in itself, violence will look different than it does today.”

Hope, hope, hope!

At CALCASA’s Campus Training & Technical Institute in Las Vegas, one of the themes that has been emphasized by most presenters is the necessity of campus coordinated community response (CCCR). Across the board — addressing bystander intervention, working with the justice system, attending a faith-based institutions, creating policies and approaching the needs of international students — CCCR is a key for strengthening campus responses to violence against women.

AEquitas, an organizations that provides prosecutors with resources to end violence against women, had representatives deliver presentations at the Institute. The presenters re-enforced the importance of CCCR. In the video, Jennifer G. Long and Christopher Mallios share their presentations and discuss their mission to improve the quality of justice in sexual assault, domestic violence, dating violence and stalking cases by developing, evaluating and refining prosecution practices that increase victim safety and offender accountability.

As the Institute continues today, topics include alcohol-facilitated sexual assault, victim services, peer intervention and clinical forensic services. Right now, Joe Ehrmann, motivational speaker at Coach for America, is delivering his keynote. Attendees are live tweeting — for the most up-to-date information, following the hashtag #vegastti on Twitter.

©xotoko's photostream

Next week is CALCASA’s Campus Training & Technical Assistance Institute in Las Vegas.  As part of our ongoing effort to increase and enhance our use of technology in the Campus program, we’ve been exploring the use of Twitter to enhance communication experiences.

Many of you may already be using Twitter to network with friends, family and co-workers.  The Campus program has been using Twitter to receive updates from campuses and, in addition, we will be using it actively at the upcoming Institute.

If you have a Twitter account, start talking to CALCASA on Twitter! Our account username is @CALCASA. Send us a “tweet” or Direct Message. The Campus team is on Twitter too, so start following us! — @theacalcasa, @DanCALCASA, @LiviaCALCASA.

To simplify your Twitter experience, we suggest downloading a free application called TweetDeck. It allows you to filter your tweets. For example, you could categorize your friends/family in one group, so you only see their tweets. And you could have another category for Campus TTI folks. TweetDeck also makes it easier to search for specific terms and keywords.

At the Institute, we’ll be using a function on Twitter called Hash Tags. That’s when you see something in a tweet that has a # prefix. A Hash Tag is simply a way for people to search for tweets that have a common topic. For example, if you search #sexualassault, you’ll get a list of tweets related to this topic. At the Institute, we’ll be using the Hash Tag #VegasTTI.

We hope you start practicing you Twitter skills! :] Feel free to practice on us — @CALCASA.

If you’re feeling unsure about the Twitter-sphere, or you want a little more direction, our resident Twitterer is Jessica Napier. She’s our Online Media Producer, and she’ll be at the Institute in June. She’s happy to help anyone start the conversation on Twitter. If you have questions about signing up, e-mail her at jessica@calcasa.org.

St. Cloud, MN – When Dr. Dorothy Edwards addressed University of California staff and administrators about Green Dot in San Francisco last fall, she stressed the importance of investing time and energy to develop meaningful relationships with campus partners/allies working to end campus violence. As a social worker interested in community-based/participatory paradigms, I find Dr. Edwards’ notion of connecting with campus partners and allies relevant given that people are more likely to participate in social change when bonds are created over time specifically when there is a common language and trust.

Meeting Lee LaDue, the Project Director of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), Office on Violence Against Women (OVW) Grant to reduce sexual assault, domestic/dating violence, and stalking on campuses, Sheila Johnson, the Project Coordinator, as well as other campus partners reminded me of the challenges faced by campuses in small communities where people know each other.  Nationwide, sexual assault is a highly under-reported crime but particularly in small, rural communities where survivors often fear for their safety and privacy should they report their experience to local police.  What most struck me during the visit, besides seeing students wearing shorts and flip-flops in chilly 60 degree weather, is how St. Cloud State benefits from having a project coordinator familiar with how individuals in law enforcement speak and relate to each other.  Knowledge of how to communicate with law enforcement is critical when collaboratively developing survivor-centered training curriculum on sexual assault, domestic violence and stalking.

Over the course of two days, I met with administrators interested in furthering the university’s efforts surrounding training opportunities and prevention efforts and students committed to challenging and changing social norms on their campus surrounding gender, sex and violence.  I also had the opportunity to listen to Suzanne Koepplinger, Executive Director of the Minnesota Indian Women’s Resource Center, talk about her agency’s recent research study that examined trafficking of Native American girls and women in the state of Minnesota.  The study involved survivors throughout the research process and in the crafting of recommendations for combatting trafficking in Indian country.

Watch the above clip with interviews of St. Cloud State students and staff talk about activities for Sexual Assault Awareness Month and what brought them into the movement to end sexual violence.

Canton, N.Y. – St. Lawrence University is a four year liberal arts university in the village of Canton, a rural, farming area of upstate New York near the border with Canada.  St. Lawrence is one of several institutions of higher education in St. Lawrence County, the others being: State University of New York (SUNY) Potsdam, SUNY Canton and Clarkson University.  One element that distinguishes St. Lawrence from the neighboring universities is the institutional and student support in addressing and ending sexual violence on campus.

Chris Morrin, Project Director of the U.S. Department of Justice, Office on Violence Against Women (OVW) Grant to reduce sexual assault, domestic violence, dating violence and stalking on campus, oversees the sexual violence prevention efforts.  Upon arriving in Canton, I attended “Spark Change” a student production comprised of various student groups addressing sexual violence.  Through poetry, music, and multimedia, students shared their unity publicly standing against sexual violence.  One of the powerful pieces came at the end, when male-identified student athletes and one female-identified student, all dressed in white, spoke about the tragedy surrounding the death of 14 women at the École Polytechnique on December 6, 1989, a movement appeared in Canada of wearing the white ribbon to signify opposition to violence against women.  One of the athletes, with a flower in hand, commanding the empty stage, stood before the audience and briefly but poignantly spoke about the responsibility of men in ending violence.

The next two days were filled with meetings where I met with different grant partners, including administrators, judicial affairs officers, the director of campus safety, researchers/educators and students.  The site visit ended with a lunch where I met students that form part of MAASV (Male Athletes Against Sexual Violence).  The group’s president, a female third year student not engaged in university sports, treasurer/graduating senior, and the newly elected publicity chair shared their stories of how they became involved in the movement, the struggles they have faced in challenging social norms on campus and how they plan on carrying out what they have learned from each other into their lives post St. Lawrence.

Mia Mingus (left) facilitating a discussion at the University of New Hampshire

Durham, N.H. – At the January 2010 Campus Training & Technical Assistance Institute (TTI) in Orlando, Jane Stapleton, the project director of the U.S. Department of Justice, Office on Violence Against Women (OVW) Grant to reduce sexual assault, domestic violence, dating violence and stalking at the University of New Hampshire (UNH) attended the endnote presentation where Mia Mingus spoke about the intersection of violence and the urgency of not only responding to violence but collaborating with allies in preventing and ultimately ending sexual violence.  Jane’s enthusiasm in hearing Mia’s presentation carried over to having the out spoken activist facilitate a discussion on the intersection of violence at UNH.

A predominately white institution, with a 24 hour crisis center for students in need of services relating to sexual assault, and home to some of the country’s most exciting prevention efforts in sexual violence, UNH’s campus partners gathered for a morning filled with analysis and critique of violence as well as identifying campus resources in order to improve service delivery and responses to survivors of sexual violence.

On April 27th, CALCASA hosted a discussion on critical concepts in effective sexual assault response teams with Donna Barry, APN and Chief Paul Cell, both from Montclair State University.  Not only did they address how to create SARTs on campus, but they also discussed the importance of evaluation and developing best practice response.

Webinar materials include: powerpoint presentation (pdf), text chat transcription (doc), and the audio.

Campus webinar on critical concepts in effective sexual assault response teams (pdf)

Text chat of Campus webinar on critical concepts in sexual assault response teams (pdf)

Audio recording of critical concepts in effective sexual assault response teams

Campus Sexual Assault Response Teams: Program Development and Operational Management

Registration is now open for the Summer 2010 Campus Training and Technical Assistance Institute, which will take place June 16-17, 2010 in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Click here for more information on:

• General Campus Institute Information
• Location & Travel
• Agenda (coming soon)
• Pre-Institute Trainings (grantees only)
• Registration
• Fees (for non-grantees only)

Deadline to register is May 24, 2010.

Webinar Description

On Tuesday, April 27th, from 11.00 a.m. – 12.30 p.m. (PST), the Campus Program will host a webinar on “Critical Concepts for Effective Sexual Assault Response.” Our guest speakers are Donna M. Barry, APN, FN-CSA, Director of the University Health Center at Montclair State University and Paul M. Cell, Chief of Police at Montclair State University, authors of Campus Sexual Assault Response Teams: Program Development and Operational Management.

Overview

This webinar will provide some strategies to utilize for evaluating the effectiveness of sexual assault responses on campus. Facilitators will iidentify some of  the primary concepts that are imperative to the structures of victim-centered responses and will provide troubleshooting for dealing with common challenges when implementing and revising campus protocols.

The PowerPoint (in PDF format), presenter resources, transcript of the text chat, and audio recording will be made available within a week of the webinar.

Registration information was distributed via the project directors listserv. The registration link will include “xpjkkbp” at the end.  If you have any difficulty registering, please email CALCASA livia@calcasa.org.

The deadline for the Summer Training & Technical Assistance Institute (TTI) call for abstracts has been extended until Friday, April 9, 2010.

Summer 2010 Training & Technical Assistance Institute Call (doc)

We strongly encourage individuals doing work specifically to combat sexual violence on college/university campuses to submit a proposal.  The call provides detailed information about the TTI and workshops we are seeking to address the needs and resources of partners working to end sexual violence.  If after reading the call you have any questions, please contact Livia Rojas at livia@calcasa.org.

“Why It Matters: Rethinking Victim Assistance for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Victims of Hate Violence & Intimate Partner Violence” is a new report that is based on a 2009 survey of victim assistance providers and LGBTQ anti-violence programs throughout the United States.  Why It Matters, done by the National Center for Victims of Crime and the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs, describes widespread gaps in victim services for LGBTQ victims of crime and recommends steps to improve the services and their accessibility.  For service providers working in the field of sexual violence, this report provides vital data and recommendations for improving service delivery.

To read the full report, click here.

Roger Canaff, with the U.S. Department of the Army, led this month’s Campus Program webinar discussion on “A coordinated community team response to sexual assault: Understanding survivor behavioral response.”  Drawing from his legal background in the field of sexual assault, Roger provided a framework surrounding counter-intuitive behavior in order to further enhance community partners’ understanding of survivor behavior and victimology.  By doing so, partners become more sensitive towards the survivor and also better equipped to engage in an investigation process that will ultimately lead to successful prosecution.

Below are the materials from March’s webinar including the presentation and text chat transcription.  The audio recording will be made available within the next week.

A coordinated community team response to sexual assault: understanding survivor behaviorial response (pdf)

Campus March 2010 text chat (pdf)

The amazing folks at Safer Campus blogged about a recent report “Hidden Marks” from the United Kingdom issued by the National Union of Students (NUS), an organization of 600 student unions in the UK, the first national survey on campus sexual assault.  To read the full report, click here.

The report has similar findings to those in the United States:

Policy recommendations for making campuses safer for students include the following:

• Set out how the institution and students’ union will develop and implement activities to change attitudes and raise awareness of violence;
• Enable students and staff to recognise and effectively deal with violence and harassment against women students;
• Discuss how to best utilise peer support in tackling violence and harassment;
• Contain plans for improving campus design and security so as to help students feel safe;
• Outline how the institution will work with relevant agencies to ensure that students access the support services that they need;
• Contain steps explaining how reporting will be encouraged;
• Set out how the institution will respond to violence against women perpetrated by its students.

The Alston Bannerman Fellowship Program, as part of the Center for Social Inclusion, is supporting long-time activists of color by giving them the resources to take time out for reflection and renewal.  For more information, click here:

“The program honors those who have devoted their lives to helping their communities organize for racial, social, economic and environmental justice. The program provides resources for organizers to take time out for reflection and renewal. Fellows receive a $25,000 award to take sabbaticals of three months or more.”

Deadline: April 13, 2010

Clinicians working on college campuses acquire years of training in such fields as psychology, social work, public health, sociology, among others that shape the theoretical approach they use as therapists. Field practicums provide the real-world training necessary for clinicians to apply theoretical models and work with people struggling with a variety of issues. Coursework and/or sessions in communications, journalism or public affairs are typically not offered in clinical psychology or social work graduate programs.  Clinicians learn how to work with the media more so once they completed their graduate program.

Through stories and resources, the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism is “dedicated to informed, effective and ethical news reporting on violence, conflict and tragedy,” specifically sharing tools for journalists, educators, researchers/scholars and clinicians.  One of the center’s publications is called “Child Clinicians & the Media,” which provides tips on issues of privacy, helping journalists write a story, developing press kits, how to ask and answer questions, and raising public awareness. Although the publication focuses on child clinicians, the suggestions are practical and transferrable to the field of sexual violence on college campus.

If you have other resources that colleagues combating sexual violence on campus can benefit from, please contact CALCASA with your suggestions so we can share them via the listserv and/or website.

Davis, CA – On February 26th, the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender (LGBT) Resource Center at the University of California, Davis experienced acts of vandalism. The entrance to the LGBTRC was defaced with derogatory and hateful words that target students, staff and faculty that self-identify as Queer.  For resources and support, UC Davis community members are encouraged to turn not only to the LGBTRC  but also the following on-campus centers:

Women’s Resource & Research Center, http://wrrc.ucdavis.edu
Cross Cultural Center, http://ccc.ucdavis.edu
Student Recruitment & Retention Center, http://thecenter.ucdavis.edu

The LGBTRC has hosted townhall meetings working towards an action plan that will create a safer campus climate with the active involvement and input from members of the Queer communities as well as allies.  Tonight, the Interfaith communities will host a vigil for peace and healing from 7-8 p.m.:

“In response to the recent acts of hate on campus, and in light of feelings of stress and unease surrounding fee increases, the interfaith community will host a vigil, creating a space where all are welcome to come and share their fears, their pain, and their hopes for the future.”

Las Vegas, NV – Call for abstracts/workshop proposals is now open.  The Campus Program will consider completed proposals returned via email or fax by April 2, 2010.  For detailed instructions, please download the call:

2010 Summer TTI Call for Abstracts (doc)

Registration and hotel information will be made available within the next few weeks.  Please check the Campus blog for updates.

On Tuesday, March 30, 2010 from 11.00-12.30 p.m. (PST), the Campus Program will host a webinar on “A coordinated team response to assault survivors: understanding survivor behavior responses.”  Our guest speaker is Roger Canaff who will address the issue from a CCRT perspective.  To register for the webinar, please check the listserv for instructions.  If you have any questions, please contact your TA Coordinator.

Summary

Students who report a sexual assault are often viewed with skepticism.  Should a student decide to file charges, survivors of sexual violence often encounter many challenges on campus, as well as during the investigation/prosecution of a case.  One challenge survivors often experience occurs when their behaviors does not match what society expects from victims.  For instance, after being assaulted, a student may call their friend or take a shower instead of reporting the incident to law enforcement.  Such behaviors are perceived to be counterintuitive. For this reason, it is critical for law enforcement and judicial affairs to further enhance their understanding of survivor behavior and victimology in order to be more sensitive towards the survivor and to also be better equipped to engage in an investigation process that will ultimately lead to successful prosecution.

Speaker

Roger Canaff has lectured to Sexual Assault Nurse Examiners nationwide on their role in the legal process, and has lectured to physicians and others in the medical field as well. He has trained nationally on issues related to juvenile crime, sexual assault prosecution, child abuse and related issues. In 2003, Roger joined the staff of the National Center for the Prosecution of Child Abuse at the American Prosecutors Research Institute in Alexandria, Virginia as a Senior Attorney. In 2005, he returned to active prosecution and relocated to New York City where he worked in the Child Abuse and Sex Unit of the Bronx District Attorney’s Office.  Roger took a position as a Highly Qualified Expert in June 2009 and is working for the Department of the Army specializing in assisting military prosecutors in investigating and prosecuting sexual assault cases within the armed forces.

Objectives

1. To understand the behavior of sexual violence survivors in order to enhance the law enforcement investigation and prosecution processes.
2. To learn tools that can be integrated into the work done by CCRT members.

Materials (available after the webinar)

In an effort to raise awareness about violence against women, the United States Department of Justice is currently visiting 12 colleges and universities across the country.

“The tour is part of the Justice Department’s year-long commemoration of the 15th anniversary of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA). At 12 universities around the nation, Justice Department officials will speak with students about ways to prevent violence against women on college campuses, and the role that federal, state and local government, working with university staff, faculty and students, should play.”

To read the entire blog post, click here.

March 8, 2010
Associate Attorney General Tom Perrelli at Harvard University (Cambridge, Mass.)

March 9, 2010
Associate Attorney General Tom Perrelli at Brown University (Providence, R.I.)

March 10, 2010
Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Division Tony West at Stanford University (Palo Alto, Calif.)

March 11, 2010
Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Division Tony West at Pacific Lutheran University (Tacoma, Wash.)

March 12, 2010
Assistant Attorney General for the Environment and Natural Resources Division Ignacia S. Moreno at University of Illinois at Chicago (Chicago)

March 15, 2010
Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division Lanny A. Breuer at University of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia)

March 23, 2010
Acting Director of the Office on Violence Against Women Catherine Pierce at East Central University (Ada, Okla.)

March 23, 2010
Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Division Tony West at Norfolk State University (Norfolk, Va.)

March 29, 2010
Director of the Community Oriented Police Services Program Bernard K. Melekian at University of Southern California (Los Angeles)

March 29, 2010
Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legislative Affairs Ronald Weich at University of New Hampshire (Durham, N.H.)

March 31, 2010
Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Justice Programs Laurie O. Robinson at University of Minnesota (Minneapolis)

March 31, 2010
Assistant Attorney General for the Environment and Natural Resources Division Ignacia S. Moreno at University of Michigan (Ann Arbor, Mich.)

Goleta, CA – The Department of Justice Office on Violence Against Women Campus Grant program has four flagship systems that work towards meeting the minimum standards set by the grant.  The University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB) is part of the University of California system, a 10 campus system that focuses efforts on research, teaching and public service.

UCSB’s Rape Prevention Education Program (RPEP) is led by Melanie Matson, Director, who brings a wealth of experience in the field of sexual assault having worked for several years in Minnesota.  RPEP’s efforts are supported by Kari Mansager, the Assistant Director of the RPEP, as well as student interns.

La Jolla, CA – In the last few weeks, communities at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) have experienced a series of abhorrent events surrounding race.  Members of a fraternity invited guests to celebrate Black History Month by dressing as their “favorite ghetto stereotype.”  Most recently, a student left a noose in the main library which led to additional student protests demanding the school’s administration take active steps towards recognizing the hostile climate and work with students in order to create a safer environment for marginalized communities at UCSD.  On March 1, UC President Mark Yudoff and UC Regents Chairman Russell Gould met with students in Sacramento about the recent incidents of intolerance across the UC system.

The structural mechanisms at work in these incidents are similar each time a student is sexually assaulted.  Students, staff and faculty are entitled to thrive on a safe campus.  However, as advocates in the sexual violence field know, to end campus violence requires a collaborative effort from all stakeholders as part of an ongoing commitment rooted in accountability, open dialogue, and education.

Resource on Hate Crimes

Responding to Hate Incident (PDF)

Below are links that highlight reactions by UC administration, UCSD faculty, and the ACLU of San Diego & Imperial Counties on race relations as well as Battle Hate at UCSD, the university’s response to creating a safer campus environment.

KPBS discussion on race relations at UCSD (web link)

Chancellors Statement (PDF)

Battle Hate at UCSD (web link)

Mia Mingus

Mia Mingus is a queer disabled woman of color, South Korean transracial adoptee, and organizer.  Through her work on disability, race, reproductive justice, gender, sexuality, and transracial adoption, she recognizes the urgency and barriers for oppressed communities to work together and build alliances for liberation.  Though her activism changes and evolves, her roots remain firmly planted in ending sexual violence.  Mia has been recognized for her work with the 2008 Creating Change Award by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force.

As the Endnote speaker at the Campus Winter Institute, Mia delivered a challenging, theoretical speech on the intersectionality of identities in sexual violence and how collaboration can help end sexual violence.

[podcast]http://calcasa.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/20100204MiaMingus.mp3[/podcast]

A recent visit to a grantee program at the University of Guam yielded great information on what is being done on campus to prevent sexual violence.  ISA Psychological Services and the Violence Against Women Prevention Program work to provide students with effective prevention and intervention programs with help from Guam’s Attorney General-Alicia G. Limtiaco and various community partners.

Violence Against Women Prevention Program: Dr. Seyda Turk Smith, Maira K. Rios, Junelyn L. Hautea, Dr. Iain Twaddle

Check out what they are doing…

Enforcement and prevention are at the core of a recent article done by NPR and the Center for Public Integrity on sexual assault incidents at college campuses.

Rebecca Gordon, the Project Director at the University of Illinois at Chicago, led today’s webinar on “What new grantees ought to know.”  Given the high number of new recipients of the Department of Justice, Office on Violence Against Women’s Grant to Reduce Sexual Assault, Domestic Violence, Dating Violence and Stalking on Campus, CALCASA’s webinar focused on essential elements to getting programs off the ground.

Below are the materials from February’s webinar including the PowerPoint, text chat transcript and the audio.

What new grantees ought to know webinar (PDF)

Text Chat of February webinar (PDF)

February 2010 webinar audio

Below are some of the resources developed by the University of Illinois at Chicago campus team.

New Grantee Resource List

Oakland, CA – Sexual Assault Awareness Month (SAAM) is an especially exciting yet challenging time for advocates by investing concerted and heightened efforts to raise the level of awareness and education surrounding sexual assault across on the individual, community, organizational and public policy levels.  How to draw additional attention to sexual assault, advocates often ponder?  Art has long served as a medium through which to share ideas/events and elicit a variety of reactions from inspiration to provocation in order to create social change.

Breaking Silence

Inspired by the stories he heard while interviewing people, Bay Area-based artist Joe Schneider developed “Breaking Silence” an exhibition using photography and interviews that revolves around survivors of sexual assault.  The exhibition toured college and university campuses across the country where attendees, given a portable cd player, would walk through the room to see portrait photographs of survivors mounted and displayed on easels while listening to interviews where the survivors share their experiences.  ”There is a real range of the healing process [that comes appears in the exhibition].  I think some of these people are very evolved and others are much more raw.  Talking about it is a good thing no matter what.”

The exhibition is meant to serve as a space where people can individually connect with stories thereby reiterating how sexual violence is an issue that impacts diverse communities.  ”There’s something intimate about listening to the stories on a headset,” Joe adds.

“Prevent sexual violence…on our campus” serves as the theme for the National Sexual Violence Resource Center (NSVRC) 2010 Sexual Assault Awareness Month campaign which focuses on primary prevention.

“The campaign is built around the Spectrum of Prevention framework, developed by Larry Cohen of the Prevention Institute, that places public health problems, including sexual violence, within a larger context, beyond individual behaviors, to highlight the community and societal factors that influence the issue.”

The NSVRC provides a variety of resources specific to campuses working to end sexual violence.

SAAM Day of Action is Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Orlando, FL – On January 20-21, campus grantees gathered in Orlando for the Winter 2010 Training & Technical Assistance (TTI).  The two days provided keynote speakers and workshop sessions aimed to address the institute’s theme “Coordinated Community Response and Working with Underserved Communities” by focusing on a variety of areas: law enforcement, best practices in meeting minimum grant standards, working with underserved communities, peer education, and engaging men in campus work.

A survivor of stalking opened the conference by sharing her experience.  As the Chief of Threat Assessment at Virginia Tech, Major Gene Deisinger addressed coordinated community response during lunch.  One participant noted that Major Deisinger “offered suggestions about how to address violence against women from a macro perspective.”  As someone that self-identifies as queer disabled woman of color, South Korean transracial adoptee, Mia Mingus closed the TTI with a discourse surrounding the intersectionality of identities that is often overlooked by sexual violence advocates across the country.   Another participant described Mia’s speech as “extremely inspiring, audacious, and insightful” by challenging attendees to look at various frameworks when doing sexual violence work.

Media from the TTI will be made available on the CALCASA site in coming weeks.  Below is the TTI program as a PDF.

Winter 2010 TTI program

On Tuesday, February 23, CALCASA will host “What new grantees ought to know” which will be facilitated by Rebecca Gordon, Project Director at the University of Illinois, Chicago.  The discussion will focus on UIC’s best practices to achieve minimum standards and ideas to initiate the Campus grant program/campaign.

We strongly encourage participants to be prepared with questions to engage the presenter and other participants in dialogue.

For registration instructions, please check the Project Directors listserv or contact your respective TA coordinator.

The PowerPoint (in PDF format), resources, transcript of the text chat, and audio recording will be made available within a week of the webinar.