Sexual Assault Prevention On College Campuses

Sexual assault continues to be a problem on college campuses despite greater attention to reducing rates of assault and an increased presence in the public discourse. Programming has been historically directed towards women by providing them with information about how to keep themselves safe rather than confronting a climate conducive to sexual violence. This important volume illuminates the urgency of combating sexual violence on college campuses. The authors depict in detail empirically supported approaches to combating climates conducive to sexual violence and ways to empower all members of the campus community to actively prevent sexual violence.

Sexual assault continues to be a problem on college campuses despite greater attention to reducing rates of assault and an increased presence in the public discourse. Programming has been historically directed towards women by providing them with information about how to keep themselves safe rather than confronting a climate conducive to sexual violence. This important volume illuminates the urgency of combating sexual violence on college campuses. The authors depict in detail empirically supported approaches to combating climates conducive to sexual violence and ways to empower all members of the campus community to actively prevent sexual violence.

We live in a moment of renewed and highly visible action on the issue of sexual violence. Rape culture is a real and salient force that dominates campus climates and student experiences. Canada has drafted a national framework, provincial legislation, and institutional policy to address incidences of sexual violence, and students have demanded that their universities respond. Yet rape culture persists on campuses throughout North America. Violence Interrupted presents different ways of thinking about sexual violence. It draws together multiple disciplinary perspectives to synthesize new conceptual directions on the nature of the problem and the changes that are required to address it. Analyzing survey data, educational programs, participatory photography projects, interviews, autoethnography, legal case studies, and existing policy, contributors open up the conversation to illustrate sexual violence on campus as a structural, cultural, and complex social phenomenon. The diversity of methodologies sets this study apart: a problem as complex and far-reaching as rape culture must be approached from a multitude of angles. Decades have passed since student advocates first called for "no means no" campaigns, but universities are still struggling to evolve. Violence Interrupted answers the call by bridging the gap between advocacy, research, and institutional change.

Amid the ongoing national conversation regarding campus sexual assault, this book thoughtfully explores existing programmatic interventions while wrestling with fundamental questions regarding the cultural shifts in our nation’s higher education institutions. Stressing the critical importance of student inclusion in policy decisions and procedures, scholars and experts provide complex and nuanced analyses of institutional practices, while exploring themes of race, sexuality, and sexual freedom. This volume addresses many of the unanswered questions in the present dialogue on campus sexual violence, including: What’s working and not working? How can outcomes be assessed or measured? What resources are needed to ensure success? This volume provides a truly fresh contribution for higher education and student affairs practitioners seeking to alter, design, or implement effective sexual assault prevention resources at their universities and colleges.

At least one in four women attending college or university will be sexually assaulted by the time they graduate. Beyond this staggering statistic, recent media coverage of “rape chants” at Saint Mary’s University, misogynistic Facebook posts from Dalhousie University’s dental school, and high-profile incidents of sexual violence at other Canadian universities point to a widespread culture of rape on university campuses and reveal universities’ failure to address sexual violence. As university administrations are called to task for their cover-ups and misguided responses, a national conversation has opened about the need to address this pressing social problem. This book takes up the topic of sexual violence on campus and explores its causes and consequences as well as strategies for its elimination. Drawing together original case studies, empirical research, and theoretical writing from scholars and community and campus activists, this interdisciplinary collection charts the costs of campus sexual violence on students and university communities, the efficacy of existing university sexual assault policies and institutional responses, and historical and contemporary forms of activism associated with campus sexual violence.

In this important book, Linder advances a power-conscious lens to challenge student activists, administrators, educators, and policy makers to develop more nuanced approaches to sexual violence awareness, response, and prevention on college campuses.

Although awareness of campus sexual assault is at a historic high, institutional responses to incidents of sexual violence remain widely varied. In this volume, a diverse mix of expert contributors provide a critical, nuanced, and timely examination of some of the factors that inhibit effective prevention and response in higher education. Chapter authors take on one of the most troubling aspects of higher education today, bridging theory and practice to offer programmatic interventions and solutions to help institutions address their own competing interests and institutional culture to improve their practices and policies with regard to sexual violence. The Crisis of Campus Sexual Violence provides higher education scholars, administrators, and practitioners with a necessary and more holistic understanding of the challenges that colleges and universities face in implementing adequate and effective sexual assault prevention and response practices.

For many students, coeducational college campus life is marred by traumatic experiences of sexual assault. While there are many social determinants of rape and attempted rape, this work examines the pivotal role of male peer support in legitimizing the sexual assault of women. The authors use extensive prior studies together with their own investigations, including a national representative study and local campus victimization surveys carried out in the United States and Canada.