Sexual Assault Committee Receives $270k from Department of Justice

The Middlebury Sexual Assault Oversight Committee (SAOC) received a $272,528 grant from the US Department of Justice’s Office (USDOJ) on Violence Against Women.

In the grant application submitted to the DOJ, the SAOC wrote that the funds will be used to “significantly strengthen student, faculty and staff understanding of the causes and consequences of sexual assault, domestic violence, dating violence, and stalking; the resources that exist to support survivors; and our ability to prevent and respond to these phenomena effectively.”

The USDOJ’s Campus Grant Program is dedicated to reducing sexual assault and harassment on college campuses. The grant, which is awarded annually, is distributed in a reimbursement structure over a three-year time period.

One of the cornerstones of the grant program is the collaboration between the college, community partners and local organizations such as WomenSafe, RU12?, and the Addison County Council against Domestic and Sexual Violence, who will work together in the months to come.

SAOC members will work with Associate Dean for Judicial Affairs and Student Life Karen Guttentag and the newly-appointed Health and Wellness Director Barbara McCall to make use of the funds on campus.

Most notably, the SAOC plans to continue revising and improving the college’s sexual  misconduct policy. The current policy, which was developed in 2011 and has since been the primary focus of the SAOC, strives to create a judicial framework that reflects the mission of the college by “preventing sexual misconduct, eliminating any hostile environment, preventing its recurrence, and correcting its discriminatory effects” on the community.

Another main objective of the SAOC is to strengthen existing sexual assault programs on campus, including the mandatory first-year programming and residential life training. To do this, the SAOC plans to go through training with bystander intervention programs across the country, as well as to develop a survey through which it will be easier to determine levels of sexual assault and harassment in the community.

There are also plans to revamp the training programs required of the College’s sexual misconduct investigators and board members in order to guarantee that students and community members involved in sexual assault cases receive fair and impartial treatment according the sexual misconduct policy.

According to student members of the SAOC, the availability of money from the grant allows programs started last year to continue.

“The students of the SAOC are very excited to have the grant to fund projects [that] we were able to fund last year such as printing and mounting permanent versions of the Stand Up visual campaign around campus, as well as bringing in speakers to open up conversation around sex positivity and other related topics,” wrote SAOC student co-chair Olivia Case ’15 in email.

In addition to growing and improving existing programs, the SAOC plans to institute new programming in areas where they feel there has been a shortage of attention and resources. One example is seeking out educational resources to begin work on creating a stronger men’s movement in the area of sexual assault and harassment, as well as addressing the glaring shortage of local Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner’s (SANEs), an issue that should be greatly minimized by the financial support of the grant. There are also plans to develop workshops that will focus on topics ranging from healthy relationships and consent to defining masculinity and femininity.

While there are specific areas of the college’s sexual assault programming that require more attention than others, Guttentag said, “Ultimately, what we are after is deep-rooted cultural change.”