SHEPHERDSTOWN – Despite advocates of Shepherd University’s Stand Up Campaign’s best efforts, it is still unclear if progress is being made to stop sexual violence on campus.
In 2013, President Obama signed the Campus Sexual Violence Elimination (SaVE) Act into law.
It increases transparency about reported sexual violence crimes on campus, guarantees the rights of victims, standardizes disciplinary proceedings, and requires campuses to hold education programs. It prompted Shepherd counselor Rhonda Jackson and members of the residence life office, Jessica Oswald and Ashley Dorsey, to start 3D Thursdays as part of the Stand Up campaign.
The 3Ds stand for “Direct,” “Distract,” and “Delegate,” three methods of intervention bystanders can use when it appears that a crime of sexual violence is about to occur.
The leaders of the 3D Thursday campaign held events every week last semester to get their message out. They collaborated with program board and counseling services for some events, such as the Shoe Project and taking “I stand up because…” photos at the PB&J days.
They also had a veterans-themed Thursday where veterans helped out and a quiz day to gauge whether people actually knew the 3Ds.
“A majority of people who walked by could tell us at least two out of the three Ds,” Dorsey said.
The Stand Up campaign uses all volunteers, mostly resident assistants, for programs. This semester, though, they are planning to work more with Greek life to help out and do different programs.
So far this semester, the Stand Up campaign has set up events in the dining hall to promote knowledge about stalking and given out hot cocoa in the library to promote the campaign. However, they do not currently have any plans to focus on other situations, when bystander intervention is not available.
“That kind of teaching has been going on forever and it’s not changing anything,” Oswald said. The Stand Up campaign, she said, wants to tell people to teach others why it is not acceptable.
According to Oswald, the information and pamphlets they hand out on Thursdays always have resources for victims. The question still stands of how to get it through the heads of those who commit these crimes that what they are doing is wrong. Jackson said that they try to educate people about consent in other ways, like at orientation and athlete training. These crimes are still happening, though, and the problem does not seem to be getting better.
“The reporting of incidents has significantly increased. The number is scary, but it’s really misleading, “Oswald said. This increase is a good thing, she said, because it means more people coming forward after a crime has occurred; it does not mean that more crimes are happening.
Shepherd’s 2014 Campus Security Report noted that there were eight reported cases of forcible sexual offenses in 2013. However, according to a 2000 Department of Justice study, 95 percent of rapes and acts of sexual violence on campuses go unreported. If accurate, that would mean there were 160 cases of sexual offenses in 2013 that went unreported. So it may be that the 3D Thursday campaign created better reporting of cases in 2014, but that is only based on conjecture and cannot be proven. The number of unreported cases of rape and sexual violence at Shepherd will never be known.
The other impact of the campaign has been that students are at least more aware of how to intervene as bystanders.
“I’ve even heard people say things like, ‘don’t be a bystander,’” Dorsey said.
All of the leaders of the Stand Up campaign say Shepherd students are remembering their message.
“Student groups are starting to own this,” Jackson said. Fraternities are interested in promoting the campaign and student athletes are working with it as well, she said.
Students are definitely more aware of these methods, but using them is another story.
R.A. Nazahne Ross said that, put in one of these scenarios, she thinks she would try to use one of the three Ds. “It’s one thing to be aware and it’s another to actually implement one of these, though,” she said.
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