Task force to review assault on campus
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.
