CJ Trowbridge
WMST1
2020-03-01
Prompt: This is a two part question. Be sure to answer both parts:
Write the sample text a college could use to realistically warn potential students about the risk of sexual violence they could face if they enroll. (About one paragraph)
THEN write the concrete policy steps that YOU WISH the college would implement to keep students safe. What could this look like?? Be creative, bold, and as effective as possible.
Statistically, it is very likely that you as a student will be sexually assaulted during your time at Sierra College. Because Sierra College wants to keep its numbers looking good, our policies instruct employees to violate the mandated reporter law and report sexual violence to some bureaucrat instead of directly to the police. Mandie Davies is a champion for this college who will do everything possible to hide sexual violence against students in order to protect the fake public image of this college, as she said in the Q&A panel after the airing of The Hunting Ground at Sierra College a few years ago. I screamed at her then, and I’ve been doing it ever since.
Since Mandie Davies has already given notice that she is resigning at the end of this academic year, I am no longer fighting to remove her from office. Even with the moral stain of her tenure beginning to fade, it will take years of competent and ethical leadership to change the culture of victim blaming and sexist, regressive, criminal, anti-student policies at this college.
During my internship last semester, I gave two recommendations on this issue which I still feel are the best solutions:
First, student groups should be required to have expert third parties from independent outside organizations as permanent members of equal standing to their faculty advisors. For example, Mandie Davies has fought for years to prevent Stand Up Placer from providing free crisis-trained sexual violence counsellors on campus. Instead, unqualified academic counsellors are expected to respond by forwarding these serious issues to some random bureaucrat who works to cover up sexual violence in violation of the law. Changing this, and putting actual experts from objective and independent third-party organizations in positions in student clubs like Feminist Action and Rainbow Alliance would go a long way towards forcing change to happen in this area on campus.
Secondly, while it’s great that we have a few student engagement centers on campus, we should have offices on campus provided to expert third parties like Stand Up or Stonewall or organizations representing other underserved or marginalized communities. This would allow real experts to provide vital services to students and coordinate to respond to events on campus, rather than random bureaucrats who work in the interest of the college and against the interests of the students.