As I said in my Philosophy of Leadership paper, sexual assault is a huge issue on college campuses. I would like to make a change to our sexual assault awareness/education program. Right now, there is an online training that freshmen are required to take, but because it’s online, people don’t pay attention and breeze through it. They quickly forget what they read, and they don’t care enough to go back and review.
I think an in-person one credit hour freshman course would be much more useful. The professor can go more in-depth and cover other social issues like LGBTQ rights, that way the students get a more well-rounded education on social issues. The class should focus a lot on what constitutes sexual assault (like if they’re drunk, it’s not consent), how to prevent it, and what to do in case it happens.
The vast majority of sexual assaults aren’t even reported because often times they aren’t taken seriously. Rape cases are often dropped by police and the assaulter does not face very harsh consequences. I think a good way to make victims more comfortable with reporting incidents would be to bring in UCPD and someone from the Title IX office to talk about the process they go through and to show the students that they do care and do take it seriously.
My initial steps would be to gather a group of students that are passionate about this subject. Together we would revise my idea so that it is the most effective and plausible that we can make it. Then we would go to faculty and staff and get their input. One huge obstacle is that no one likes to talk about sexual assault. It’s going to make people uncomfortable, so they’re going to resist it. Once we get some treading though we’re going to run into problems like finding someone willing to teach it and even going about creating a class. We’d have to figure out who to talk to and what all information they need. This is a huge project but I think it will be hugely beneficial to the campus in the end.
I think an in-person one credit hour freshman course would be much more useful. The professor can go more in-depth and cover other social issues like LGBTQ rights, that way the students get a more well-rounded education on social issues. The class should focus a lot on what constitutes sexual assault (like if they’re drunk, it’s not consent), how to prevent it, and what to do in case it happens.
The vast majority of sexual assaults aren’t even reported because often times they aren’t taken seriously. Rape cases are often dropped by police and the assaulter does not face very harsh consequences. I think a good way to make victims more comfortable with reporting incidents would be to bring in UCPD and someone from the Title IX office to talk about the process they go through and to show the students that they do care and do take it seriously.
My initial steps would be to gather a group of students that are passionate about this subject. Together we would revise my idea so that it is the most effective and plausible that we can make it. Then we would go to faculty and staff and get their input. One huge obstacle is that no one likes to talk about sexual assault. It’s going to make people uncomfortable, so they’re going to resist it. Once we get some treading though we’re going to run into problems like finding someone willing to teach it and even going about creating a class. We’d have to figure out who to talk to and what all information they need. This is a huge project but I think it will be hugely beneficial to the campus in the end.