The College updates discrimination policy, institutes online reporting service; student advocacy group redoubles efforts
Wyatt Smith
Features Editor
While most of the College was on break over the summer, some members of the campus community were working to address issues related to preventing sexual assault and harassment on campus. The result is a diverse mix of interconnected and ongoing initiatives, some of which were conceived last spring, although most have been in development for an extended period of time.
Summer workshops for faculty and staff
In June, the College hosted workshops led by an organization called the Association of Title IX* Administrators (ATIXA). The sessions covered issues related to sexual assault, harassment and misconduct, with an emphasis on case studies.
The administration made an effort to have representatives from many different offices and departments of the College present at the workshops. However, only a small percentage of the attendees were from Wooster.
“We had 221 participants from 43 different colleges and universities from 11 different states,” said Secretary of the College and Chief of Staff Angela Johnston. “This is a big issue for a lot of colleges and universities across the country.”
“Quite honestly, it’s the best training I’ve had at the college,” said English professor and Director of The Center for Diversity and Global Engagement (CDGE) Nancy Grace, one of the 20 Wooster faculty and staff members who attended the workshops. “It puts us in a position to do serious investigations that protect all parties involved at the college. It provides advocacy for students and other members of the college community.”
Updated discrimination policy
ATIXA thanked Wooster for hosting their workshops by giving them permission to incorporate the organization’s model discrimination policy into the College’s rules and regulations — a privilege that institutions normally must pay for. This new policy features up-to-date legal definitions and clear language, and covers sexual assault in addition to all manner of discrimination.
Despite the impending adoption of the new policy, Johnston holds that the rules and regulations of the college will, from the point of view of the campus community, remain largely the same. She views the change as a clarification, not an alteration, of college policy.
Before it can be added to the official college rules, the ATIXA policy will be reviewed by legal counsel, Campus Council and a variety of faculty and staff committees, as well as the campus community as a whole.
Online reporting
The College is also working on developing an anonymous online reporting form to offer victims or witnesses a clear and safe way to report instances of sexual assault or harassment. The online form could be ready to use in as little as a week, according to Johnston.
Many feel that the form addresses a clear need in the college. The hope is that the form’s accessibility will encourage people to report incidents, thereby making the campus safer.
“Students and faculty and staff had come to [the CDGE] with concerns about how to actually report and what the college was doing to make sure that the campus climate was as safe as it could be,” said Grace.
“We want anybody in this campus community to come forward if they’ve been a victim of assault or harassment or discrimination,” added Johnston. “That’s really the most important thing.”
New special assistant to the president
Starting this school year, Susan Lee became the special assistant to the president for diversity affairs and campus climate, leaving her former position as the associate dean of students for multicultural affairs. According to the 2013 convocation booklet, Lee is now responsible for “develop[ing] programs and events to encourage a campus climate that is respectful, welcoming, inclusive and free from discrimination, intolerance, racism and sexual harassment.”
Prominent among Lee’s new duties is initiating conversations and events related to sexual respect. For instance, she is organizing a visit by Black Women’s Blueprint — a Brooklyn-based civil and human rights organization dedicated to ending racial and sexual discrimination — in late September to lead workshops about sexual respect, hook-up culture and consent.
Lee also created an ad hoc committee — a mix of students, faculty and staff — tasked with educating the campus community on issues related to sexual respect, via the creation of a brochure and short film.
Student advocacy
The administration isn’t the only group at Wooster trying to change the sexual climate on campus. A student group called k(NO)w, which was created last spring, seeks to educate the campus community about sexual respect, rape culture and consent.
“k(NO)w is about changing the culture at Wooster” said Gina Christo ’14, a founding member of the organization. “It’s about engaging everybody.”
Members of k(NO)w kept in touch over the summer to plan for the school year. This fall the group hopes to hold a panel and talk to first year seminars about the terminology of sexual advocacy, in order to help students identify instances of sexual assault and rape culture. Furthermore, k(NO)w wants to open a discussion with the student wellness center in order to address reports of slut-shaming when female students request services such as pap smears, birth control and STI testing.
k(NO)w also plans on creating a charter, which it must do in order to become an official student organization.
“The most important thing…is that we are not talking about some remote, irrelevant concept as it occurs in other places,” said Ellie Kleber ’14, a member of k(NO)w. “We are specifically directing our educational efforts to things that happen at this school every single day.”
*Reader’s note: Title IX deals not just with athletic programs, but rather any form of gender discrimination in all federally-funded educational institutions.