Is This Enough?
The April 5 article, “SPCSA hosts fifth annual Symposium on Sexual Assault” reports on the outcomes of the Symposium and Dartmouth’s new four-year sexual assault education program. The new curriculum is based on the United States Navel Academy’s program and will require students to engage with sexual assault programming on a yearly basis, rather than just at the start of their freshman year. The termly options will include watching online videos, using interactive websites, and attending workshops like the Dartmouth Bynstander Initative and Movement Against Violence training. Yet, as a student, I am left asking if this is enough? Will this plan really change our campus culture around sexual assault or will it just be another requirement we all have to fill?
I believe our campus goal should be to create lasting behavioral change around issues of sexual assault, and I don’t think that can be done through a computer screen. I am sure most of us can agree that Haven, the online sexual assault program we had to complete before orientation, was not especially impactful or effective. For this new education program to be effective we need to have peer-mediated discussions that require participants to critically engage with the issues at hand. Student organizations like MAV have found that time and time again that these strategies create the most effective prevention programs. This four-year program is an opportunity to create lasting and profound change for our campus and I want to be sure this chance isn’t wasted.
-Savannah Moss ‘18
Safe at Home Base
This fall’s inauguration of the residential housing system restructures undergraduate life at the College, but also creates a new frontier from which Dartmouth should combat sexual assaults. The simple logic that live-in faculty members and strong community bonds further education in the classroom also applies to education on the most urgent of matters: the nationwide reality of sexual assaults on college campuses. Best implemented, the new communities made up of upperclassmen resources and faculty advisors offer ideal “home bases” from which difficult yet important conversations can thrive as part of the “Moving Dartmouth Forward” policy initiative’s round-the-clock learning priority. Perhaps most promising of all, persistence and dialogue will create a new cultural norm of responsible conduct.
While certainly no cure-all for such a difficult subject, next year’s overhaul of undergraduate life offers a unique window for the Dartmouth community to prioritize sexual assault awareness. Why not install multiple identifiable live-in sexual assault peer advisors in each community? Even current upperclassmen less invested in the new houses can rally behind installing this conversation into the very woodwork of our new residential life. Live-in faculty members also offer an opportunity to better gauge campus climate and encourage participation in the sexual assault surveys. Such prioritization can help familiarize victims with mental health resources available to them and increase assault reporting. The housing system’s new social and academic spaces also provide much-needed physical anchors for existing programs such as the Dartmouth Bystander Initiative and the planned four-year sexual assault education program. Prioritizing sexual assault education in the new house`s will create meaningful change and a safer campus for all students. What better a way to welcome the 2020s into the Dartmouth family?
-James Fair ‘18
