The office plans to finish all the first-year workshops by Thanksgiving.

Canvassing the Campus

Although the office has been more visible in the Yard up until now, Marine says she, Wilson and Areán will expand their efforts to upperclass students and student groups next semester.

“Once we are done with the freshmen, we want to focus on the upperclassmen, sports teams and just about everyone else we can,” Wilson says.

Wilson says she also wants to work with rape survivors, have dating workshops and work with gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender groups. She says she will also be meeting with tutors to sponsor an event in each House.

Areán, whose role in the office primarily involves engaging men in the issues surrounding sexual assault, will be trying to get men to realize their role in prevention.

“I think the greatest challenge is that many men do not see this as a man’s problem. They see this as a woman’s problem,” says Arean.

Last month, Marine, Wilson and Areán met with members of the Coalition Against Sexual Assault and Violence for the first time.

The meeting highlighted some of the difficulties the office may have in addressing an issue as complex as sexual assault.

During the discussion, Wilson drew a line between drunken sex and sex when one of the students may be incapacitated, which she says is rape.

“There’s a misconception at Harvard if you have sex when alcohol is in the bloodstream than it is always rape and that is not true,” says Wilson. “However, if a person is intoxicated to a point of incapacitation then it is sexual assault.”

It was Coalition’s outcry in spring 2002 that drew national attention to Harvard’s sexual assault policy and led to the formation of the Faculty committee to examine the issue. Members of Coalition closely monitored the committee’s evaluation of the College’s sexual assault prevention resources and are now waiting to see the impact of the office.

“I think it’s a phenomenal step up from previous years to have so much focused education, and I think we need to sit back and wait and see how the education is having an impact on first-years,” says Coalition member Sarah B. Levit-Shore ’04.

—Staff writer Nalina Sombuntham can be reached at sombunth@fas.harvard.edu.