Student Wellness has coordinated many events for Sexual Assault Awareness & Prevention Month (SAAM). The month of April is designated as such to raise public awareness and educate communities on how to prevent sexual violence.
Amanda Cheetham, the health educator for Student Wellness, coordinated many of the events. According to Cheetham, the national movement serves as a chance to, “raise awareness for sexual assault and its prevalence on college campuses, inform students of what they can do to prevent sexual assault, how they can report sexual misconduct and to let survivors know that there is support.” Most importantly, Cheetham wants students to know that informed students have the “power to prevent sexual assault.”
Cheetham hopes these events will help “reduce the number of sexual assaults that occur by working with students to prevent them from happening.”
Dale Boyer, assistant director of campus security, hopes that the events will lead to the “better education for men and a greater awareness for women on the issue, better clarification on what exactly constitutes assault and better communication between men and women regarding each other’s limits, expectations or values in a relationship.”
Boyer defines sexual assault as “the unwanted touching or fondling of areas considered private of another person against his or her will using force, threat or intimidation”
“Two individuals were investigated for violations of the College’s sexual misconduct policy during the spring 2014 semester, but the complaints were determined to be unfounded,” Boyer said.
The amount of reported sexual assault and misconduct on campus varies each year, but campus security has reported that “we realize that most men would never consider committing an assault or rape. However, the individuals who frequently do commit these offenses are repeat offenders or serial offenders. If this is the case, then it is possible to have one person on a campus responsible for several incidents.”
According to Boyer, alcohol was a major factor in about 80 percent of the reported incidents; most often both the man and woman consumed alcohol to some extent. “[Alcohol] makes it more difficult for the woman to set and enforce boundaries and lowers the man’s inhibition, making him less likely to think about things like consent or possible consequences resulting from his actions,” Boyer said.
“Statistically, first-years in the first few weeks to month are most vulnerable and most susceptible to coercion to having unwanted sex,” Boyer said. He also said that the most common scenario is by someone who the victim knows.
The Student Wellness Center’s first SAAM event was The Clothesline Project (CLP), which was displayed in the Baugher Student Center (BSC).
The Clothesline Project addresses the issue of violence against women by providing a vehicle for the women to express their emotions by decorating a T-shirt. A clothesline is hung with shirts that represent an individual’s experience with violence. Some of the shirts are made by survivors, others by people close to a victim of violence.
A white shirt represents someone who died because of violence. Yellow represents a person who was assaulted. Red, pink and orange represent survivors of rape and sexual assault. Blue and green represent survivors of incest and sexual abuse. Purple represents people attacked because of their sexual orientation or gender identity.
The purpose of the project is to raise awareness of violence against women, men and children, to celebrate their strength to survive and to provide an opportunity to break the silence.
The Clothesline Project is a program started in Cape Cod, Ma in 1990 to address the issue of violence against women. A shirt is hung on a clothesline to be viewed by others as testimony to the problem of violence against women. With the support of many, it has been spread all over the world.
“The purpose of the project is to: bear witness to the survivors as well as the victims of the war against women; to help with the healing process for people who have lost a loved one or are survivors of this violence, to educate, document and raise a society’s awareness of the extent of the problem of violence against women and to provide a nationwide network of support, encouragement and information for other communities starting their own Clothesline Projects,” Cheetham said.
The project can be seen hanging from the top floor of the BSC; it will be displayed until April 13. If anyone would like to create a shirt to display, they may anonymously drop their completed shirt in The Well or Counseling Services. There will be T-shirts and supplies available at The Well.
