Students work to prevent sexual assult

Anne Katharine Wales bemoans the lack of effective dialogue surrounding sexual assault and declares that “something desperately needs to be done” in her column, “When Trust Is Broken.” Although Wales is certainly correct in saying that sexual assault is a major problem on our campus, she discredits the hardworking students who strive every day to change that by her assertion that “despite all the dialogue and activities to promote sexual assault prevention and awareness, our campus has sadly remained very much unchanged.”

Every time a new dialogue about sexual assault is opened, there exists the opportunity to prevent an act of violence. As anyone who works to prevent sexual assault can attest, the knowledge that you were able to stop even one person from being assaulted as a result of your involvement is enough to keep you going.

Of course it is important to have some kind of assault prevention programming included in freshman orientation, as most sexual assaults in college occur in the first six weeks of a student’s freshman year. This is why the Healthy Devil Peer Educators have worked hard to develop programming in the form of the Real Deal, and this year Sexual Assault Support Services launched a new initiative called the First Six Weeks campaign, which successfully reached over 400 students in 21 small group dialogues in dorms all over East Campus.

There clearly remains much to be done, and there are ways to get involved. One great way is to train as a SHARP peer educator (e-mail xiomara.padamsee@duke.edu). Men can get connected with MAC, a group of male students dedicated to reducing gender-related violence on campus (see www.duke.edu/web/mac).

Perhaps the reason it seems the situation remains static is that statistics don’t change over night. But people’s lives can, and we have the opportunity to change lives for the better and make our community healthier if we seek out and utilize the resources available to us.

Lindsay Stanga

Trinity ’05