The University of Wisconsin Board of Regents focused on the prevalence of sexual assault on campus, among other issues facing the UW System, during discussions at Thursday’s meeting.
Details concerning the nature of sexual assault within the UW System and across college campuses nationwide were released through a study conducted by Rankin and Associates as part of a wider assessment titled the “UW System Climate Study.”
The study is a part of an ongoing initiative meant to assess the nature of select campuses — UW Colleges, UW-La Crosse, UW-Milwaukee, UW-Oshkosh and UW-Stevens Point — via the opinions and experiences of students, faculty and community members.
The study ran from September 2007 through August 2008.
According to Chuck Pruitt, vice president of the Board of Regents, a presentation at the meeting reviewed the findings of a study in terms of campus climate on a variety of areas and issues, including diversity and campus safety.
“[The study] found disturbing trends in relation to sexual assault on campus,” Pruitt said.
In addition to the UW System’s recent study, a survey conducted by researchers at Miami University of Ohio and the University of Missouri found college women are often “unaware of drug-facilitated sexual assault and fail to recognize the risk of certain behaviors, including leaving drinks unattended.”
Carmen Hotvedt, violence prevention specialist at the UW University Health Services, said it is difficult to evaluate the true number of sexual assault incidents because sexual assault and dating violence are widely considered to be two of the most underreported crimes.
Pruitt said because the survey is relatively new and the findings are preliminary, the regents primarily talked about the potential actions they could take to ensure safety on campus.
“We talked about what we might do as a board and (what) a system could do in terms of addressing the issue of feeling comfortable on campus,” Pruitt said. “This was the first phase of that study, and there are going to be subsequent reviews on the individual campus level in the future.”
Currently, the UW has organizations, like Promoting Awareness Victim Empowerment, to address the issue of sexual assault by proposing a variety of strategies to campus.
“PAVE advocates for bystander intervention, which is watching out for yourself and your friends,” Nastassja Heintz-Janis, PAVE outreach coordinator at UW, said.
PAVE also trains peer educators to talk with students about the myths surrounding sexual assault so that students will have a better idea as to what constitutes sexual assault and how to address the problem if it arises.
According to Pruitt, this problem is one of great importance because it goes beyond the issue of quality of education to include questions about quality of safety on campus.
“I think one sexual assault is one too many,” Pruitt said. “This is a question about what we can do to … prevent these things from happening within the UW System.”
–Remi Boudreau contributed to this report.
