As part of Ohio University’s efforts to make campus a safe place for all, last school year the University joined Culture of Respect, an initiative led by Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education (NASPA). Culture of Respect is a program whose goal is to end sexual violence on college and university campuses. Allison Tombros Korman, the senior director of Culture of Respect at NASPA, recently visited the Athens Campus to review the University’s self-assessment practices. She met with OHIO’s Culture of Respect task force which includes Kim Castor, the director of the Survivor Advocacy Program, and Mat Hall, the assistant director of Health Promotion, which leads the Bystander Intervention and Power-Based Personal Violence Education programs. She also met with Jason Pina, vice president for Student Affairs, Cary Frith, chief of staff to the executive vice president and provost, and Chad Mitchell, chief of staff to the vice president for finance and administration.
Culture of Respect gives colleges and universities the training and tools to make institutional changes that can help to end sexual violence. The two-year program provides experts to guide task forces through a rigorous self-assessment of their current policies, programs and strategies. Culture of Respect then reviews the assessment and offers suggestions on how the institution can grow, improve and adapt their sexual violence prevention programs. Finally, task forces coordinate campus efforts for policy execution and programmatic changes.
“Unfortunately, sexual violence is not an issue unique to our campuses; it is a concern for every college campus in this country. Through our work with Culture of Respect, we are able to benchmark with other institutions to learn from one another, understand the issue comprehensively, and meaningfully engage with tactics that will actually yield results. The Division of Student Affairs recognizes that we need to make changes at an institutional level for the safety of our students, and I am appreciative that our Culture of Respect task force has taken up this challenge to better understand and address this complex problem,” said Pina. The Ohio University task force is led by Castor and Hall and was formed in early 2019. They recently completed their internal assessment, which addressed 155 points regarding the University’s policies on sexual misconduct, educational programs, public disclosures, survivor support and more.
The NASPA Culture of Respect visit helped guide the task force’s next steps. Tombros Korman provided a summary of OHIO’s strengths while also giving specific recommendations for places to improve. Her suggestions included promoting sexual assault prevention programming to all Bobcats, including undergraduate and graduate students, faculty and staff. She also proposed formalizing an exit interview practice for students who have participated in the sexual misconduct process so that the University can refine the process to better support students.
Now the task force is finalizing an Individualized Implementation Plan. “This is another way for us to hold ourselves accountable and to work collaboratively within the University but also within the Culture of Respect cohort,” said Castor. While the plan is still being completed, it implementation will begin in 2020.
If you or someone you know has experienced sexual violence, you can find support from the Survivor Advocacy Program, Title IX, Counseling and Psychological Services and more.