Pending approval by the administration, the Student and Presidential Committee on Sexual Assault hopes to launch a pilot program this spring to fund student research projects investigating sexual violence.
Paul Gastello '13, who is in charge of managing the initiative this term, said the mini-grants would help students achieve SPCSA's three primary goals: improving the College's understanding of assault at Dartmouth, fostering collaboration between students, administration and faculty and helping students interested in researching sexual violence to obtain support from faculty and administrators.
"I definitely do think that the three things apply to both short and long-term," he said. "One other thing that I'm hoping for with this is that we can start moving beyond dialogue. We do talk a lot, which is great, but then I just get frustrated that we don't do more, so I'm hoping that this is a step in that direction."
SPCSA chair Elizabeth Hoffman '13 said the grants will help ensure students' research findings are effectively conveyed to those who can best confront the issues of sexual violence.
Research efforts are a waste if the information does not get back to the administration and the President's Office, particularly because sexual assault is so prominent at Dartmouth, she said.
"It's sort of a universal issue, Dartmouth is not the only place that sexual assault occurs," she said. "However, our numbers are much larger than our peers, and we have to ask ourselves, Are things different here, and why?'"
Any research project that addresses sexual violence related to or directly applicable to the community would be eligible for funding through the SPCSA initiative.
Gastello recently spoke with a student who hopes to look at how other schools address issues of sexual violence and to find ways to apply these tactics to Dartmouth.
Hoffman said that the idea for the mini-grant project came out of the spring recruitment process for the SPCSA, during which over 50 students applied for the five available positions.
This "overwhelming interest" encouraged the committee to come up with an alternative way for interested students to address sexual assault.
"We didn't want to deny people access to this movement," she said. "We started thinking about other ways that people could be involved."
Gus Ruiz Llopiz '14, who will also lead the initiative in the spring, first came up with the idea to fund sexual violence research projects last year.
Since then, the committee has been working to finalize the proposal, iron out logistics and develop an effective way to present the idea to the administration, Gastello said.
Assuming that the program is approved, the spring pilot will give way to a fully functional mini-grant funding program this fall.
"The pilot is to help us finalize how we want it to look and function going forward, ironing out the kinks in the spring," Gastello said. "Then we'll have something final that can be perpetual from the fall going forward."
Even if the project is not approved this term, the committee will continue to work to get it passed, especially because the administration will likely give them advice to improve their proposal.
"I don't think that there is any reason to say that if we don't get approved in the spring we'll give up," he said. "I also don't think that if it's not approved it'll be a flat-out rejection."
Llopiz could not be reached for comment by press time.
