Haven't heard anything lately about the Interfraternity Council's sexual assault prevention team? You're not alone.
Last summer, the IFC created a student-led task force in an effort to investigate the role of Greek life in sexual assault. The committee, which initially consisted of 12 IFC members, planned to examine the social culture at Duke during the 2015-16 academic year and make recommendations to prevent and address the issue of sexual assault.
Almost a year and a half later, the task force has yet to release any findings to the public. Before now, the only comment from a member on the task force's progress since its inception was in June, when senior Annie Adair said that the group met six or seven times last Fall and at least once in the Spring. She told The Chronicle then that the committee was planning to send out a survey to the IFC.
During an interview with The Chronicle Thursday, IFC president Mitchell Grant, a senior, said that no report was ever supposed to be released.
"I think our goal is to continue to ensure the safety of Duke students, people in general, and make them more aware of what’s going on," Grant said.
However, he noted that transparency is not a priority for the task force.
"I think [the task force is] also something that people need to recognize as private," he said. "It’s an internal thing for the Interfraternity Council. It’s not a university-wide something. It answers to the Interfraternity Council. It doesn’t answer to anyone else."
He explained that the group has implemented several new steps to ensure safety at social events, including making sure there are free water bottles and sober brothers at all fraternity parties.
Grant added that they are also planning an event for sexual assault awareness month next April.
The goal of the group is still to investigate sexual assault on campus, he noted, including "why people perceive that these events take place more at fraternity events."
The team is recruiting new members to the sexual assault prevention team, having initially consisted of only IFC members but at some point last year deciding to include women. Senior Jake Son, co-chair of the sexual assault task force, recently sent out an application to all members of the Duke Panhellenic Association.
In the email sent to the Panhellenic Association, Son noted that the task force presented recommendations last year to the IFC President's Council, an internal IFC group. He also wrote that the task force this year will consist of 15 members, including "women from PanHel, and all other individuals that are affected by IFC events."
"This year, we are looking to assess the impact of these recommendations, and to educate ourselves about recognizing and intervening in sexual assault," Son wrote in the email.
The application for IFC's sexual assault prevention team consisted of only two questions that required responses no longer than 250 words—"Why do you want to be on this committee?" and "How would you approach a friend that has been behaving inappropriately (self-defined) around others?"
David Pittman, interim director of fraternity and sorority life, could not be reached after multiple requests for comment via phone and email.
Likhitha Butchireddygari contributed reporting.
Correction: Annie Adair told The Chronicle in June that the IFC sexual assault prevention team was planning to send out a survey to the IFC. She has no record that they actually did.
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