The Bad, The Good, and The Great!

Addressing Campus Rape

 

One of the wonderful aspects of teaching at Quinnipiac is we are provided with opportunities to offer courses on current topics that directly impact our students’ lives.  This fall, Quinnipiac students have a chance to take a course on a topic that has dominated the media of late: campus rape. 

The bad news: we know campus rape is a huge issue, impacting thousands of lives. We are learning more about the problem as it occurs on campuses large and small, private and public, in fraternities and with athletes, and across the general student population. We all know the statistics by now—one in four students will experience some form of sexual assault or harassment in his/her time in college. We know that in the past universities have been more inclined to sweep the problem under the rug than address it, and victims were more likely to be blamed for what happened, than supported and have their experience treated like a serious crime.  A new documentary, The Hunting Ground exposes the problems of rape on college campuses and how poorly universities have handled the issue.

The good news: the problem of campus rape is finally getting the attention it deserves. The Obama administration, the Department of Education, the Department of Justice, and other federal entities have all increased and improved their efforts to address this serious issue.  Universities have stepped up their game as well, creating advocate positions, opening women’s centers, offering bystander training, and generating more awareness about the policies protecting students from acts of harassment and other forms of violence.

The great news: Quinnipiac is lucky to have many committed faculty, staff and administrators who have started a collaborative conversation about the problem of campus rape and are working together to bring about changes in our community.  The Addressing Campus Rape course is a part of that effort, to use the methods of positive activism and social science theory and methods to identify the problem and suggest solutions.  We are hosting a screening of The Hunting Ground on October 21, 2015, and we are excited to work with student organizations in an effort to have open dialogue around an issue important to everyone in a college community.  Working together we anticipate we will make Quinnipiac a model of how a college responds to, and ultimately prevents, the abuse of any member of our community.