Of the roughly 7 percent of Ohio University students in Athens who completed a survey about their social experiences and safety on campus, more than 80 percent reported that they had experienced some type of sexual misconduct victimization.
The Presidential Advisory Committee on Sexual Misconduct conducted the Social Experiences and Safety Survey to 19,459 graduate and undergraduate students during Spring Semester to assess the scope of sexual misconduct on OU's Athens campus. The survey closed April 1 after being launched on March 15.
The survey was emailed to students, and more than 2,200 students clicked on the anonymous link, while approximately 1,350 students completed the survey all the way through. About 73 percent of students who took the survey were women, about 85 percent were white and about 87 percent identified as "heterosexual."
On Sept. 26, the survey was submitted to the president’s office by the 2015-16 committee members. The 23 members included three graduate students and three undergraduate students. The report was dated Monday and released Tuesday.
“However, given the low participation rate (6.9 percent) as well as a low total number of participants who identified as a racial, ethnic, or gender minority, the results must be interpreted with caution as this sample may not be representative of all Ohio University students,” the report read.
Of the 82 percent of students who said they had experienced some type of sexual misconduct victimization on OU's campus, the most common type was sexual harassment from other students, with a rate of 74 percent.
Nearly 20 percent of the students who took the survey had experienced dating violence, and 29 percent of the students who responded to the survey reported sexual victimization since starting college at OU.
Twenty-nine percent of women who took the survey said they had experienced sexual assault victimization. Of that 29 percent, 13 percent of those women reported being raped during their time as an OU student.
“Our data also seems to indicate that some groups of students — namely non-heterosexual, females, and those who do not identify their gender on the binary — seem to be at a higher risk for sexual victimization,” the report stated.
According to victim self-reports, 70 percent of the sexual assaults occurred off campus.
About two-thirds of the perpetrators were described by the victims as OU students, and 77 percent of the victims reported that they knew their perpetrator.
Alcohol was consumed by both the victim and the perpetrator in more than 60 percent of the assaults reported in the survey.
About a third of the sexual assaults reported in the survey occurred during the first six weeks of a Fall Semester at OU.
“Given the low participation rate and the low number of racial and sexual minorities who took the survey, all results need to be interpreted with caution given that the extent to which the students who took the survey are representative of the larger body of Ohio University students is unknown," the report stated.
The Ohio Department of Higher Education recommends that campuses receive at least a 30 percent return rate on the survey to have an accurate sampling of the entire population.
Going forward, the committee suggested 10 recommendations to improve the overall climate of OU and lower the rates of sexual misconduct. Those included developing and evaluating a systematic sexual misconduct prevention plan, integrating sexual assault and alcohol prevention efforts, training peers to positively respond to disclosure of sexual assaults and increasing support to investigative units on campus.
In 2014, OU President Roderick McDavis established the Presidential Advisory Committee on Sexual Misconduct, and he said he found the results of the recent survey “informative.”
“Although the participation rate was 6.9 percent, this data provides an important baseline against which to measure the success of our ongoing and future efforts to create an even safer campus,” McDavis said in the report.
