E4C — Eager For Consent Part II
Sexual assaults have always been a problem around college campuses in U.S. The results of the newly published survey by the Association of American Universities ring the alarm bell again: nearly one in four college women experience sexual assaults during their time in college. Does this number shock you? For me, it does.
As a senior student at Brandeis University, I feel regret that this nationwide highly-concerned issue didn’t catch a lot of my attention during my college years. Not until getting the opportunity to report on this story, I have no sense about such statistics and the climate around sexual assaults within the environment I have been living for so long.
I believe many people in my community would probably say the same thing. During the interviews with other students of Brandeis, many of them don’t seem to know too much about actual cases happening around them.
Not heard of doesn’t mean cases did not happen. I feel sad that we, as college students, members of our community, receive little education on how to protect ourselves and others around, and are even completely not alarmed of such issue that so closely relates with us.
While on one hand we might wonder how come students are less informed on this issue, on the other hand we appreciate efforts that those active organizations do to raise awareness. They serve as an important bridge to urge the administration to take actions.
The Brandeis Hoot, Brandeis University Community Newspaper, reported increasing sexual assaults cases on campus early last year. Soon at the end of last year, B.SASV (Brandeis Students Against Sexual Violence), the first student organization at Brandeis that focuses principally on tackling issues related with sexual assaults, reunited and collected over 2500 signatures from students to call for actions on improving campus climate around sexual assaults.
No detailed reports are provided by the Brandeis administration about the statistics of cases happened in the school at this point. But there are always a lot more that we can do to let people be aware and know ways to get help. No matter for individuals like us, non-profit organizations, or the administrations, it’s the time to take our responsibility, if you haven’t, to make everyone in the community feel safe and to prevent any further harms.
Want to know more about how local organizations and active students do to fight against sexual assault? Keep up with E4C for our future story with B. SASV.
Have any comments or suggestions to better improve our community climate around sexual assaults? Share your idea with me at kawala.xie@arlingtonpublicnews.org, and I’m there to help!
