Rachel Yeates, Campus Carrier News Editor
President Barack Obama’s Reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) earlier this year brings changes to the ways colleges across the country are handling sexual misconduct.
Berry is expected to adhere to these changes by July 2015.
The VAWA has been altered to promote clarity in campus proceedings, the accessibility of information to students and faculty, and continual and improved awareness programs, among other updates.
Information about Berry’s current policies can be found in the Viking Code of Conduct and the Annual Security and Fire Safety Report.
Victims of sexual assault should know they can file a report with outside or campus police and with Berry administration, but they can also file a report without pressing charges and without revealing personal information. This way Berry knows the event took place and can still document it as having occurred.
 |
| Ryder McEntyre, Graphics Editor |
The ways these charges are handled differ between a police and an administrative investigation.
“We communicate to each other,” Debbie Heida, dean of students, said. “The criminal process and the campus process are two different things, but they can happen at the same time.”
Heida noted that their purposes are different. Police investigations can result in criminal or civil suits, but administration is responsible for the status of students and Berry as a college.
A lot of choice remains open to the victim, including whether or not they want to press charges, said campus police chief Bobby Abrams.
“It’s very important that they report it,” he said. “If at all possible, we encourage prosecution, but you can’t force a victim into doing that.”
Students and professors like Susan Conradsen, associate professor of psychology and director of the women’s studies program, worry about the accessibility of information for victims as well as a general lack of campus awareness of what defines safe and consensual sex.
“From what I hear from the students, more things occur than many people ever know about,” Conradsen said.
She would like to see easily accessible information about sexual assault available on campus, especially online, as well as efforts to extend conversation about consent and prevention beyond students’ first semester at Berry.
Junior Kacee Culpepper, an intern at the Sexual Assault Center of Northwest Georgia (SACNWGA), agrees.
In regard to the required freshman event “Can I Kiss You?”, a program that stresses “yes means yes” and the bystander effect, she thinks it “has an initial positive effect, but … more continual discussion about those topics are definitely needed.”
The VAWA provides guidelines for sexual assault awareness programming to occur continually throughout the year and also updates and clarifies the information of which colleges should be making students and staff aware.
Some of the information that needs to be spread involves quelling misconceptions people have about sexual assault.
Senior Sara Gheesling, a peer educator who also works at SACNWGA, commented on the myth that every rapist is someone in a ski mask lurking in the shadows. That keeps people from understanding that rape can occur in relationships and that most rapists are people the victim knows, she said.
The Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network (RAINN) report that nearly two thirds of rape victims know the person who raped them.
Heida spoke about administrative procedure and the lack of campus notification.
“Not every report that we get is going to be announced to the rest of campus,” she said.
She described an incident that occurred four years ago. A student was physically attacked in the parking lot behind McAllister Hall while getting into her car, and because it was external to the rest of campus and anybody could have been walking around that area and would be in the future, Heida said that administration did a timely notification of the campus related to safety.
However, she then said that “if there is harassment or assault that’s happening between two people in a limited time and place, that’s not an announcement to everybody.”
An announcement will be made over email if “there is information that (we) need to give so that people are taking precautions for their own safety.”
Gheesling wishes colleges would notify students and faculty whenever they receive word of an incident on campus.
“An assault’s an assault, whether it’s in the books or not,” she said.
She was also confused about the lack of notification about incidents on campus in the last year.
“Regardless of where you are, it happens. It happens here. It happens at colleges all across the world,” she said. “We can’t kid ourselves into thinking it’s not (happening) here.”
Culpepper agrees that colleges should be more proactive and transparent.
“I would like there to be more of an emphasis on prosecuting the perpetrator and more of an emphasis on taking this issue seriously, so not just saying ‘okay, this is something,’ but saying ‘this is what’s happening, and we’re going to do something about it.’”
The problem of repeat offenders also comes into question, Gheesling said.
A White House report stated that 7 percent of college men admitted to committing rape or attempted rape, and 63 percent of these men admitted to committing multiple offenses, averaging six rapes each.
Lindsey Taylor, assistant dean of students for Residence Life, talked about following up with the parties involved.
“What we do not do is take great lengths to pursue students year after year,” she said. “Every year, I’m not going to contact those students and ask how they’re feeling and where they want to live, so it does require the student to step out in some ways because I’m not going to hover and make the student re-live (the incident).”
Conradsen and Gheesling would like to see more support offered on campus. They both talked about the benefits of having a sexual assault center on campus.
Sophomore Daniel Boddie too would like to see an open conversation on campus and a change in culture.
“Just because this doesn’t happen to you, doesn’t mean it’s not happening,” he said. “Just because it’s not being talked about doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be talked about. Just because something’s wrong with society doesn’t mean it’s always going to be that way.”