The Best of Times, the Worst of Times: “Best Practices” for Survivor Support and Gender Violence Prevention Education on College Campuses

Abstract

This article reports on a five-year project (2015–2020) to provide a campus-wide, systemic approach to survivor support and gender violence prevention education at one large, state university by a team of violence prevention educators, seasoned program development experts, and victim advocates and practitioners. Tasked with developing a “best practice” blueprint, we report on three overarching initiatives: the reliance on a strong campus/community partnership through our Coordinated Community Response Team and engagement with faculty and staff; a gender violence prevention model that focuses on leadership engagement at all levels of the organization, bystander approaches to cultural norms change, and social justice and gender transformative paradigms considered central when engaging on these issues with people of all gender identities, including men, women, and non-binary individuals; and a set of priorities that includes organizational leadership, attention to sustainability, a strong collaboration with students and community partners, and the collection of data at all stages of the process.

Keywords:

• bystander intervention
• campus “best practices;” #MeToo
• sexual assault
• survivor

Notes

1 Victimization ratios applied to the student population results in over 5,212 student survivors (4,218 female survivors and 994 male survivors). This does not include students arriving to college with prior victimization.

2 While there might have been representation from across the LGBTQ + community in the student leadership cadre, we did not ask the student leaders to disclose or discuss their own personal sexual identities or gender identities beyond whether they identified as men or women.

3 See MIT’s Education and Prevention Task Force report (McCarthy & Rankin, 2015), led by Chancellor Cynthia Barnhart, and the President’s Initiative to Prevent Sexual Misconduct at University of Minnesota, led by university president Joan Gabel, https://president.umn.edu/sites/president.umn.edu/files/2019-09/PIPSM%20Strategic%20Priorities_9_2019.pdf, for examples of leadership-driven approaches.

Additional information

Funding

This project was supported by Subgrant No. CT18 05 8518 awarded by the state administering office for the STOP Formula Grant Program. The opinions, findings, conclusions, and recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the state or the U.S. Department of Justice, Office on Violence Against Women.