From reacting to preventing : Addressing sexual violence on campus by engaging community partners

Rather than viewing the culture of rape as a problem to change, people in a rape culture think about the persistence of rape as ‘just the way things are.’” (FORCE: Upsetting Rape Culture) Recognizing the incredible capacity of community organizations and agencies, the Task Force wanted to explore partnerships between campus and community. [...] This spring, the United States Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights released the names of 76 postsecondary institutions that were being investigated under the federal Title IX mechanism “for possible violations of federal law over the handling of sexual violence and harassment complaints.”2 This news thrust the issue of sexual violence on campus into the limelight and ignited a conver [...] Here in Canada, the federal minister of the status of women announced in 2011 that she was “concerned complacency is getting in the way of ending violence against women on college and university campuses.”3 The conversation continued in Canada with high profile incidents at Saint Mary’s University,4 the University of British Columbia5 and the University of Ottawa that drew widespread outrage. [...] Many of the funding recipients I spoke to felt the tension of wanting to use their project grants as a window of opportunity to shake things up on campus while also wanting to ensure a sustained relationship with both their funders and the campuses they were targeting. [...] Community members on these committees refused to acquiesce to the resistance, but also found it frustrating to spend a large portion of their time educating the members of the committee rather than focusing on the work itself.