Sexual Assault Awareness Week began this past Saturday, with films, speeches and workshops across the Dartmouth campus all week to draw attention to the issue.
Saturday's showing of "The War Zone," a film about a family's struggles with sexual violence, began the events.
A discussion at Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity on Monday and a panel about cross-cultural experiences with sexual assault in the Collis Common Ground on Tuesday have been a few of the other events.
Today, the Women's Resource Center will hold a workshop for sexual assault survivors and their partners in the afternoon, and tonight's "Take Back the Night" march through campus and candlelight vigil on the Green will conclude the week.
Sexual Assault Awareness Program Coordinator Susan Marine said she hopes "to raise awareness, and to help survivors feel supported and valued" through the week's events.
"It is easy to forget about the issue. Awareness weeks tend to bring it up for discussion, if nothing else," Marine said.
This is the eleventh year Dartmouth has held a Sexual Assault Awareness Week. When the program was started, "there was a great deal of student discontent about the issue at Dartmouth. Many students perceived the administration to be 'unresponsive' to this issue," Marine said.
"Initially it was a call for more action and awareness," Marine said, but now it has become "more of an event to recognize and honor the survivors of sexual assault that are members of our community."
According to Marine, approximately 50 Dartmouth students report being sexually assaulted to her every year.
"To me, that's a large problem, and my days are kept full meeting with these students ... and trying to make sure they can stay here at Dartmouth and hopefully thrive despite what has happened to them," she said.
"The College feels very strongly about safety for students and making sure the environment here is one that values survivors and aims to make their voices heard. I'm amazed and touched every year by the number of administrators and staff who support the events," Marine said.
"We hope that people will attend the events, but we also hope that they will stop and think about their own relationship to the issue, and what they might do to help prevent the problem."
