A new College task force will review the incidence of sexual and physical assault on campus, evaluate means of prevention and victim support, and assess Dartmouth's reporting and adjudication procedures, Dean of the College Tom Crady announced on Monday.
The task force, which is the result of a Student Assembly recommendation, will have a wider focus than many of the Assembly's previous efforts to study issues of assault at Dartmouth, Student Body President Molly Bode '09 said.
The creation of the task force follows this fall's completion of a review of the Committee on Standards, the College's student disciplinary body.
The task force will examine all of the College's policies about sexual and physical assault, not only the COS, Bode said.
"There's never been a review of violent crimes on campus, in my institutional knowledge," she said.
In her campaign for student body president, Bode had called for the "creation of a subcommittee of qualified individuals to look specifically at sexual assault."
Plans to form the task force during Fall term were delayed after the Assembly became focused on advising the College about potential budget cuts, Bode said.
The task force will address issues of sexual assault more successfully than the Assembly's previous attempts, which lacked "concrete" plans, Bode said.
"The [new] task force has a charge; they have a mission," Bode said. "By the end of the spring, they will be submitting recommendations to the administration."
Former Student Body President Tim Andreadis '07 made sexual assault a major issue of his campaign for the presidency, but Andreadis and other Assembly members agreed that the 2007 Assembly did not address the issue as effectively as some would have liked, according to a May 2007 article in The Dartmouth.
"I think a lot of the other [Student Assemblies] have tried to make students aware of the issues, and possibly implement them, through specific avenues of change," Bode said, explaining that the new task force is looking at the issue more "broadly."
Kate Burke, special assistant to the Dean of the College, will chair the task force. Director of Judicial Affairs April Thompson and Sexual Assault Awareness Program Coordinator Michelle de Sousa will serve ex officio, meaning that they will provide information, but will not have a say in the final recommendations, Bode said.
The Assembly will select three or four students to serve on the committee based on student applications. The Assembly will attempt to choose members who represent diverse groups on campus, Bode said, and the committee itself will work to reach out to those groups that are not represented, Bode said.
"We're going to try to get a range of backgrounds [of people] who can look at physical and sexual assault on campus in a fair and productive manner," Bode said.
Jessica Lane '09, president of the Panhellenic Council, said she had no comment about the task force, as the announcement had not been formally released to the campus.
Members of the Interfraternity Council, Crady, de Sousa, Burke and Thompson could not be reached for comment by press time.
