I read with deep concern the Wespeak “Wesleyan’s Great, Unless You Get Raped” in the April 16, 2010 Argus. Sexual assault in its many form–rape, date rape, regretable sex–remains an unfortunately frequent issue on this and most other college campuses. There have been a number of student, administrative and parent initiatives on this issue in the past several years, including my own work with Erin Clark ’09 and Ari Tolman ’10 which has led to the development of the Sexual Assault Response Team Intern position currently held by Liz Krushnic ’10. Another of our objectives was to develop a website to guide students to resources on campus. Although the site is not yet a fully realized product, the basics are http://sexualviolence.blogs.wesleyan.edu.

Although we are making progress, I am not satisfied with where we are as a campus on the issue of sexual assault, an opinion shared by many people with whom I speak. I think we need to redouble our efforts. The Wespeak highlights some key objectives for change. We need to create and facilitate opporunities to explore consent. How do you give consent for intimate acts and how do you ensure having received it? How can we help one another recognize and thereby prevent nonconsensual sex prospectively?

A necessary part of this process is reporting. Four sexual assaults have been reported at Wesleyan this academic year. In three of these cases, the accused was found in violation and sanctioned. Without reporting, repeat offenders may go unrecognized. I say this recognizing that reporting can be a traumatic experience and that reporters may not be satisfied with the outcome of the process.

I am confident that Wesleyan is as sensitive as any campus to the issue of sexual violence. From my personal experience of providing sexual health services to thousands of male Wesleyan students over the past nine year, I can say with great surety that most male students are deeply commited to being responsible sexual partner and are eager for knowledge and skills to support that aim.

I don’t know of any culture or community that has solved the problem of sexual assault, but I also think we can do more and that the more we work together the more effective will be our efforts. My priority list for Wesleyan is to expand conversation and training to prevent sexual assault, communicate clearly the process for responding to and reporting incidents of sexual violence, and make the judicial process and its results as transparent and available as privace needs allow. Those of us working on these areas need to do a better job of working together and communicating our efforts.