Ohio University’s Dean of Students Jenny Hall-Jones kicked off the Finding Pathways to End Sexual Assault meeting by sharing how she sometimes feels as though she serves as the dean of sexual assault.
“I didn’t sign up to be the dean of sexual assault,” Hall-Jones said to the crowd of the about 50 people who attended the Friday afternoon meeting at Central Venue.
She said people look to the figureheads of the campus and community, so people often turn to her with their questions about sexual assault.
“A lot of people will tweet at me and ask ‘how are you going to fix this Jenny Hall-Jones?’ It becomes very personal,” Hall-Jones said.
She said everyone at OU should work to be an advocate for survivors.
“This isn’t something I can fix with a magic wand,” Hall-Jones said. “This is a systemic cultural issue.”
Jenny Dills, health communication specialist for the Division of Violence Prevention at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, was the keynote speaker for the event and discussed creating a system of primary prevention.
One in five women on college campuses experiences attempted or completed sexual assault, Dills said during her presentation.
She explained the five different elements of prevention framework, which includes comprehensive prevention, infrastructure, audience, partnership and sustainability and evaluation.
The results of the Social Experiences and Safety Survey, a survey students at OU’s Athens campus had the opportunity to take Spring Semester about their social experience and safety on campus, were released Nov. 8.
The Presidential Advisory Committee on Sexual Misconduct released the survey to 19,459 graduate and undergraduate students during Spring Semester to assess the scope of sexual misconduct.
The survey was emailed to students and approximately 1,350 students completed the survey until the end. About 73 percent of students who took the survey were women, about 85 percent were white and about 87 percent identified as "heterosexual."
Eighty-two percent of students said they had experienced some type of sexual misconduct victimization on OU’s campus, and the most common type was sexual harassment from other students, with a rate of 74 percent.
“Your climate survey is a great piece of data to look at to see where you are to make adjustments,” Dills said.
