The Day of Remembrance, Violence Prevention, and Healing Symposium was held on campus today to educate students about violence prevention. After Johanna Justin-Jinich ’10 was shot to death last May, a group of students, faculty, staff, and parents banded together to start a discussion about safety issues and violence.
“A lot of departments, students, and parents were very instrumental in bringing a group together to find out how to bring resources to our students,” said Vice President for Diversity and Strategic Partnerships Sonia Mañjon, who organized the first meeting of the group that designed the symposium.
The symposium was composed of seven workshops led by members of the University and the Middletown community. The Middletown Police Department and Wesleyan Public Safety led workshops about personal safety awareness and stalking awareness. University Pastor Joan Burnett led a healing workshop.
“There is a focus on violence prevention but there is also a focus on what to do after violence has happened,” said student organizer Camara Awkward-Rich ’11. “I’m really excited about a workshop for male-identified people, calling them into action to be allies against sexual violence.”
This summer, Sophia deBoer P’12 and Monica Valenti P’12, co-founders of the recently formed Wesleyan Parents Working Against Violence (WPWAV) group, contacted President Michael Roth asking to become involved in violence prevention on campus. Roth directed the two parents to Mañjon, who met with them in July to brainstorm ways to educate the University community.
“If there’s anything we can do to make a difference for even one student, we feel an obligation to help,” deBoer said in an e-mail to The Argus. “Increasingly, we hear reports about violent incidents on campuses around the country and feel an obligation to support the University in its efforts to ensure campus safety.”
WPWAV sparked the planning process for the symposium—over the past few months, a committee of administration members, faculty, and students have been working together to create the event.
“We see the goals of the event as helping to create awareness about potentially violent relationships and situations and helping protect students from any further tragedies,” deBoer wrote. “We hope that the Symposium will help students begin to heal from the horror of May 6.”
The closing reception, a “Call to Action,” led by Beth Ann Morhardt, the prevention and training coordinator from the Connecticut Sexual Assault Crisis Services, was structured to help students reinforce the information that they learned throughout the day.
On Saturday morning, a student-led Unity Brunch will bring together student groups and people who are focused on anti-violence.
“The focus is mainly to bring together students who in some way want to be involved or already are involved in anti-violence in some way,” Awkward-Rich said. “I think that last May was definitely a big part of why [the symposium] is happening, but I think that a lot of people are recognizing that it’s bigger than that one event.”
Mañjon hopes the weekend symposium will allow the campus community to become more vocal about issues of violence.
“I think things happen and we don’t want to talk about it, we suppress it,” she said. “I hope [the symposium] helps us to break the silence and it also gives us the access to info and resources that we need to be proactive.”