Each spring, MCC hosts an Essential Discussion on a critical issue impacting higher education. On March 8, we will focus on a difficult but important topic: campus sexual assault. While it remains to be seen how President Trump and Secretary DeVos will address this issue, in the remaining days of the Obama administration then-Vice President Biden spoke clearly about the charge to all academic institutions:
"At the end of the day, it’s about creating an environment where all students are treated with dignity and respect; where men and women feel empowered to step up and speak out against sexual violence; and where survivors of sexual assault no longer feel ashamed to come forward and ask for the help they desperately want and deserve. Your actions matter. Your leadership matters."
MCC is committed to taking on this charge: to reframing the conversation surrounding campus sexual violence and educating our community about the shared responsibility for sexual assault prevention. The goal of this year’s Essential Discussion,
Title IX: Building a Culture of Inclusion and Shared Responsibility, will be to share how all of our actions matter; how our collective leadership matters.
The day will be keynoted by Michele Jawando, vice president for legal progress at the Center for American Progress, and Gary Kelly, technical lieutenant, New York State Police, Campus Sexual Assault Victims Unit and the Special Victims Unit. Ms. Jawando will focus on policy and responsibility; Mr. Kelly will address prevention and response. Panelists will comment upon these keynotes from a variety of perspectives that show the complexity of a comprehensive campus approach to the topic: their expertise in education, the law, counseling, and medicine will inform our understanding and action.
Data from
RAINN indicates that college-age women are twice as likely to be sexually assaulted as they are to be robbed, yet less than a quarter of sexual assault victims will report the crime. Why? They believed they should deal with it on their own, that reporting would trigger reprisal, that the assault wasn’t important or that reporting would get the assailant in trouble, that the police wouldn’t help.
Imagine walking through each class day carrying the trauma of an assault alone. Imagine the painful, dull heaviness of this weight, its effect on a student’s ability to learn, to persist, to succeed.
On March 8, we will bring together the leading voices and resources needed to change this picture. I hope you will join us:
register on the Essential Discussions web pages. My thanks to Assistant to the President for Title IX and Inclusion Kristin Lowe and Executive Assistant Sheila Strong for their work on this event.
What are you hoping to learn and talk more about at this spring's Essential Discussion? Leave your thoughts in
my blog's comments.