Judge Brett Kavanaugh was confirmed to the United States Supreme Court on Oct. 8 after President Trump nominated him July 8. Kavanaugh sparked an important national conversation during his confirmation hearing after three women accused him of sexually assaulting them in high school and college.
The conversation reminds us all that sexual assault is not just something that happens in places like Washington but also happens here in Warrensburg and UCM.
According to data from the 2018 UCM administration of the Missouri Assessment of College Health Behaviors, 5.7 percent of respondents reported experiencing a sexually abusive relationship in the past year and 6.7 percent of respondents reported experiencing nonconsensual sexual contact in the past year.
Amy Kiger, director of Campus Community Health, said they are able to generalize results to the student population.
“We send the survey to a random sample of our student population. Our typical return rate is 22 percent. In 2018, 580 students completed the survey,” Kiger said. “The demographics of the sample mirror the overall demographics of UCM.”
UCM offers prevention programs and many resources for victims of sexual assault. Heather Jennings, Title IX specialist at UCM, said Title IX is the university’s resource for any sexual misconduct or sexual discrimination complaints that come through Title IX or the Office of Student Experience and Engagement.
“Typically, if a case comes to us and says something has happened, our office will reach out to that person and try to gather a little bit more information and see what has happened and what steps we need to take to try and resolve that situation and to prevent it from happening again,” Jennings said.
She said all cases are unique and require customized responses.
“Each situation is going to be different, so it’s not like a case comes in and this is what we’re going to do every single time,” Jennings said. “It just really depends on the situation, what happened and the people involved.”
Green Dot is a program UCM has in place to prevent sexual violence. Wesley Hobson, violence prevention specialist, said Green Dot teaches two components to preventing sexual violence.
“We teach students bystander intervention skills, so we teach them to be active bystanders so that they recognize warning signs of violence. They are able to know what ways they can react to that to keep the campus safer,” Hobson said. “The second component is a culture change, so there’s different ways students can show their support through Green Dot through social media, and we do a lot of giveaways as well. We also do partnerships with various events that are related to violence prevention and safety.”
Hobson said Green Dot holds overviews, which are one-hour seminars and workshops. They are more intensive bystander intervention training sessions.
“We teach skill-building of recognizing what the warning signs of stalking, dating violence and sexual assault and equip students with the know-how of how they can safely intervene to prevent that from happening through the ‘Three D’s,’ which are direct intervention, delegating to another resource or distraction to defuse the situation,” Hobson said.
Jennings said sexual assault victims often deal with trauma, which can present itself as anxiety or depression.
“Some students ask us for assistance with counseling services and so Heather Lawson, our Title IX case manager, helps connect students with those resources. Whether it’s counseling on campus, off campus or maybe in their hometown, our office can help those students with those services,” Jennings said. “We have counseling services and we can help connect them with legal services if they have a police case going on, as well. It’s really up to each student and what their individual needs are.”
Jennings said all faculty and staff members at UCM are responsible employees and are required to report incidents of any type of sexual misconduct to the Title IX office. All organizations, including Green Dot, Health Center and the Counseling Center, are confidential resources and are not required to report sexual misconduct incidents to the Title IX office.
To reach out to resources on campus, the 24-Hour Victim Advocate Hotline can be reached at 660-441-4855.
The Counseling Center is located in the Humphreys Building and can be reached at 660-543-4060.
The University Health Center can be reached at 660-543-4770.
Public Safety can be reached at 660-543-4123.
To report any sexual assault, fill out the Title IX Incident Reporting Form.
