Sexual assault is an epidemic on college campuses, and no campus–including Georgia State–is exempt.
Last year, the reported cases of sexual assault at Georgia State doubled in 2012 to 8 cases. Yet, according to the Department of Justice, one in five college women will experience rape or attempted rape while attending university, and more than half of the victims of rape do not tell anyone about their experiences, much less report their assailant.
The problem has become so bad President Barack Obama recently created a special federal task force designed to reduce incidents of campus sexual assault. And that’s a good start.
But change has to start locally if we’re going to take this problem seriously, and Georgia State has not only the ability but the responsibility to do something, however difficult it may be to address the underlying problems of our society that contribute to a culture that allows rape and sexual assault to fester in college.
Certainly the first step in making headway on this important issue is recognizing that it’s a problem, and that’s where we think Georgia State can do more to become part of the solution to this crisis.
Currently, Georgia State has a Freshman Learning Community (FLC) program that incorporates several modules to help ease new students’ transition into college. The associated GSU 1010 class offers exactly one module for sexual assault prevention, entitled “Sex Signals,” which takes the form of a live-action performance.
But here’s the problem with “Sex Signals”: It’s only a recommended module for the course, there are limited spaces available for the performance itself and it is up to the 1010 professor’s discretion to determine if it’s even par for the course.
This means that many GSU 1010 students will not even take this module, meaning that unless a freshman student is studying upper level sociology or psychology courses, they won’t be learning about sexual assault. This makes it problematic in taking strides to prevent both reported and unreported incidents.
To its credit, the University has the right idea with including this module. But the status quo is not enough.
Rather, we believe an academic, credit-based sexual assault course should be required for each student to graduate. In order to be a successful program, the course would need to be discussion-based,
incorporate multimedia and speakers into its curriculum, and be taught by qualified professors in departments like psychology and sociology.
There are specific techniques students can learn from a sexual assault class, such as bystander techniques. Bystander techniques, currently being utilized at schools like Harvard University, teach students ways to prevent sexual assault by stepping directly into a potential situation and taking strides to prevent assault.
And where are students applying these techniques? College parties, of course.
The DOJ says that 43 percent of college sexual victimization incidents involve alcohol consumption by victims, and 69 percent involve alcohol consumption by the perpetrators. Alcohol is clearly a key player in incidences of sexual assault on campus, and learning about this truth may help our students make wiser choices the next time they’re presented with at-risk environments.
We understand that many students might resent having to take a course like this to graduate. Maybe a weekly course seems like too much in addition to everything students already have on their plates. But the importance of teaching students to understand the magnitude of sexual assault directly affects their futures.
Sexual assault does not stop after the class ends, or even after graduation. Partner abuse, workplaces rife with the threat of assault and a society that promotes rape culture await us all after we gain our degrees.
Sure, the University could simply implement a single session into its sexual assault curriculum like other schools have, but that would not carry the same weight as a course totally designed to handle this epidemic.
Though the University cannot prevent future occurrences of sexual assault directly, it can certainly give new students the tools to become ambassadors of social change after graduation. Just as we are supplied with the tools to hopefully be successful in our careers, we must have the tools to collectively address this growing crisis.
