Levit-Shore said that the Ad Board process still needs further scrutiny, noting the involvement of senior tutors when victims of sexual assault bring their cases before the Ad Board.
“The disciplinary portion is the piece that the Leaning Committee had the least ability to make changes on, and its certainly one of the most difficult pieces of the system,” Levit-Shore said. “It’s the piece that still really needs to be rigorously reviewed and fixed.”
OSAPR has realized many of the Leaning Committee final report’s priority recommendations. It has established a UHS Mental Health Service “sexual assault team,” provided access to counseling for victims within 24 hours in 100 percent of situations, offered round-the-clock on-call support for 97 percent of days this year and conducted annual training for residential staff, Ad Board members and UHS clinicians.
OSAPR has yet to formally establish a system by which students can register feedback about its services.
The report stated that a standard feedback mechanism for services at OSAPR, UHS and the Bureau of Study Counsel (BSC) will be implemented in fall 2004.
“There isn’t an obvious or easy way to gather feedback from students anonymously,” OSAPR Director Susan B. Marine wrote in an e-mail. “It’s also unfair to ask survivors of sexual assault and rape to spend their time giving feedback about an office when they may wish to devote their time to their healing and other processes.”
Marine added that the office is considering the use of a secure website or anonymous forms to solicit feedback in the future.
MOVING FORWARD
The recent progress report identified OSAPR’s coordination with graduate students and schools as one major area for further expansion.
Six graduate schools have approached OSAPR seeking its involvement in training and outreach, and nine graduate students have sought help “in the context of very limited outreach on the part of the Office,” the report stated.
“The need and demand for survivor support services and technical assistance in the form of training and outreach is very real yet it remains to be decided how these issues can be addressed effectively given the current single funding source for the Office,” the report stated.
OSAPR is funded by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS), and currently concentrates its efforts on the College, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and the Division of Continuing Education, Marine wrote.
“We would not turn any graduate student away who needs help—and never would,” Marine wrote. “The future will help us determine if we can do more extensive outreach to the other graduate and professional schools. Right now we are quite busy with FAS.”
OSAPR, collaborating with researchers from the School of Public Health, is also surveying first-years three times to measure the effectiveness of its new programs, which aim to increase awareness of sexual assault resources on campus.
NEW EDUCATION
