Shepherd University seems far away from anything like assault; it seems as if it could never happen here, but it unfortunately did.
Almost immediately after the attack, Shepherd’s campus came alive with fear and wonder about how this could have happened. Soon the administration began making changes on campus to prevent this from happening again.
New lights were installed around campus to provide better light, especially behind Shaw Hall where the assault happened. Old lights were improved as well to help with the lighting problem.
However, even before this assault happened, Shepherd has been raising awareness about sexual assault with 3D Thursdays and the Stand up, Don’t Stand By program.
It seemed to me that even with the 3D Thursday events, the program’s presence has not been felt as much as it could have been. Two or three events are not enough to raise the kind of awareness a university like Shepherd needs.
More can always be done, and Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri has introduced a bill in Congress focusing on sexual assaults on college campuses.
The bill includes five provisions calling for:
- New campus resources and support services, including more consumers and advisors for students.
- Fairness in the campus disciplinary process where all students including athletes are held to one unified disciplinary board
- Training standards for on-campus personnel and specialized training to be provided for advisers, investigating personnel, and those involved in disciplinary proceedings
- Campus accountability and coordination with law enforcement
- Enforceable Title IX, which is about discrimination based on sex, and stiffer penalties for violations of the Cleary Act, which requires colleges and universities to disclose campus security information
This bill is a great step forward for preventing sexual assault. The best defense against sexual assault is to raise awareness as often as possible. This will give students and their parents a better sense of security around the campus.
This alone will make everyone safer, but we cannot let up on the awareness. We cannot simply have several events and call it a day.
We need to continue the events, and 3D Thursdays are a great start. A weekly event makes it a standard thing for the students, but they need to get their reach out further and market the 3D Thursday events to everyone more often.
They will know there is always a presence constantly speaking and showing students what Shepherd is doing to protect and educate them.
What Shepherd’s administration has done in the wake of the assault on campus is a step in the right direction, but more can be done.
The administration should go with the ideas in McCaskill’s bill, embrace them fully and use them as a weapon to stop anything like what happened behind Shaw Hall from happening again.