Last week I celebrated my birthday. It marked one year since I was sexually assaulted by my roommate. Until now, I have only shared my experience with a few of my closest friends; I haven’t told my parents nor any members of my family. For the past year, I have remained silent. While I am certainly entitled to my privacy, I now feel that I have a responsibility as a survivor to speak up and contribute to the ongoing conversation around sexual assault on our campus. This is my story.
It was about 1:30 in the morning. I was studying for a calculus exam with a few friends in the lounge of my dorm when I received a text message from my roommate asking where I was. Once I told him, he replied, “Why when I could be giving you a bj for your bday? I think I’m drunk :(.”
Though we didn’t have a very close relationship, I innocently took his texts to be a joke and tried to laugh it off, replying “thanks for the offer man.” At this point I expected—and hoped—that his text messages would stop. They didn’t. He would send several more: “let’s do it :p, shh secret,” “I’ve been told that I’m good,” “sorry I’m kinda wasted.”
I didn’t respond this time and said a silent prayer that when I finished studying and went to our room, he’d be asleep.
He wasn’t. Despite the fact that we normally didn’t talk to one another, he immediately asked me how my birthday was when I entered the room. I told him it was mostly spent in the library, studying for finals. He said that he felt sorry for me and jumped off his bed, offering me a hug. I asked him to stop after he started kissing my neck and he obliged.
Once I finished brushing my teeth, it was well after three in the morning. As I set my alarm for the next morning, he walked over to my bed and said that the offer still stood, insisting that he was really good at giving blow jobs and that it would be over quickly. Again, trying to be nice, I told him that I was flattered; that I had a girlfriend; that I wasn’t into guys. He wouldn’t stop. He said that he could change my mind about how I felt towards men. Even after I told him that she was in the hospital, he encouraged me to cheat on my girlfriend—she’ll never find out, he said. I continued to say no.
He finally relented, asking if he could just “touch it.” I naively agreed, believing that he would simply graze the crotch of my pants and that I would be able to go to sleep. Instead, he forced his hand inside of my underwear and said that he might as well give me a blow job now. On the verge of tears, I vehemently refused and pushed him away. He seemed to understand and went back to his bed. I believed that he had finally stopped.
Soon after I crawled into bed, he asked me if I minded if he “jacked off”. Again, holding back tears, I told him that I was trying to sleep and that I didn’t care. He then asked me if I wanted to join. This time, I pretended to be asleep and buried my face in pillows.
As I reported my assault in the following weeks, I was forced to relive that night four times as I recounted my experience to different members of the administration. Three days after my assault, I went to my residential adviser, hoping for a room change and possibly, disciplinary action. After some initial disbelief and repeated questions about whether I had given consent, she seemed to understand the severity of the case and promised me that action would be taken.
A week later, I met with the area coordinator who represented my dorm. Just as I had with my RA, I described my assault with ‘as much detail as possible’, pausing several times to cry. The room change occurred almost immediately, though I would have to wait until next semester to move in. Meanwhile, my ordeal was far from over.
I returned to campus early in January to speak with the Dean of Students, who offered me complete support. It had been over a month since the attack and I thought that my healing process was nearing its end. Then, I was asked to again describe my assault. More tears followed as the wounds seared open. Only after our meeting did I finally receive the chance to make a written statement about that night and no longer had to verbally recollect it.
According to the Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network, roughly 10% of all sexual assault victims are male. Most are prevented from sharing their stories by the belief that they were not ‘strong enough’ to fight off their attacker and that their assault made them less of a ‘man’. For months, I blamed myself for what occurred that night, thinking that I could’ve done something to stop it. Even worse, I felt that my roommate had simply made a grave error in judgment and, in the end, I did not pursue disciplinary action against him.
After several conversations with close friends in the past month and hearing several other accounts of sexual assault, I refuse to stay silent as our university insists upon ignoring survivors. Although my experience with the administration was perhaps not as frustrating, distressing, or negligent as that of others, which is possibly due to my status as a white male, I am standing up and speaking out. We will no longer live in silence.
“Asking for help is taking action,” said Tori Gruber ’17 at “Reducing the Sigma,” a panel hosted by the MINDS foundation and Well-Being House last month to discuss mental health on campus. “That takes so much strength, more strength than relying on yourself.”
At Wesleyan, more students than ever before are seeking help through Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS). During the 2013-14 school year, CAPS saw 724 students for a total of 3,364 visits. This marks an increase of about 30 percent from 2010-2011 in both number of students and visits to CAPS at the Davison Health Center.
“The demand has really gone through the roof, for sure,” said Director of CAPS Jennifer D’Andrea, the director of CAPS. “I would like us to keep our wait list for initial appointments to about a week and a half, and we’re not able to do that right now.”
CAPS was founded by Dr. Philippa Coughlan in 1971 and was initially based on a private practice model. In addition to Coughlan, the staff consisted of three full-time psychologists—one of whom, Psychotherapist Linda Russell, remains on staff today—who focused primarily on individual therapy. D’Andrea, who joined CAPS in 2009, was promoted to director in 2011 after Coughlan died.
“Even though the office is over 40 years old, I’m only the second director it’s ever had, which is kind of weird,” D’Andrea said.
Under D’Andrea’s direction, CAPS has expanded its staff and shifted toward a community mental health model with an emphasis on education and prevention as well as individual therapy.
“I’ve tried to really keep a focus on therapy, because there’s such a demand for it, but also integrate the office more into the University community,” D’Andrea said. “Which is hard, and it’s hard for two reasons: one is that every hour you’re devoting toward education and prevention is an hour you take away from therapy, and [the second is that] the more you’re out there in the community, the more people know about you, and the more the demand for therapy goes up. So it’s kind of tricky.”
The current staff consists of six therapists, with only two, Russell and Lisa Miceli, working full-time. The remainder of the staff work part-time: D’Andrea, Post-Doctoral Clinical/Counseling Psychologist Smith Kidkarndee, a fellow who also does outreach; Psychotherapist Anne Keating-Scherer, a social worker whose position was added this year; and Sexual Assault Resource Coordinator Alysha Warren.
Warren specializes in dealing with sexual violence, both with individual survivors and within the University community by organizing campus events geared toward education and prevention.
“I work to create a safe and supportive space for survivors of trauma that supports them in rebuilding their sense of safety and enables them to reconnect with their resilience,” Warren said. “Loss of power and control factors largely into sexual violence, and I work to help people rediscover their power.”
In recent years, Warren has introduced significant changes in the support services offered to survivors of sexual violence.
“Since the fall of 2011, with the exception of fall 2013 due to low interest, we’ve offered support groups for survivors of sexual assault each semester,” Warren said.
She has also organized groups and retreats that use art, writing, and yoga to aid survivors in the healing process.
Additionally, Warren has spearheaded campus education in order to prevent future sexual violence.
“In Fall 2013, we offered WEconsent, a seven-week sexual violence organizing training series that prepared students to organize and lead sustainable programming on campus,” Warren said. “The training provided an overview of sexual violence, effective organizing principles, best practices in sexual violence education and helped students build facilitation skills to navigate emotionally difficult conversations. The students were also trained in bystander intervention.”
Many CAPS initiatives, like WEconsent, aim to combat specific mental health-related issues. Despite the considerable variety of CAPS services, therapy—in the many forms it takes on campus—does not always sufficiently alleviate the struggles of students, particularly those who may suffer from mental illnesses.
When CAPS therapists suspect that their patients may need further mental health care, they refer them to Katina Varzos, CAPS’ Part-Time Psychiatric Advance Practice Registered Nurse. Varzos, who received her Master’s in Nursing at Yale, specializing in midwifery, assesses students’ mental health and in some cases, provides mental illness diagnoses.
Varzos deems whether CAPS patients require medical care and prescribes medication when it is necessary. However, she stressed that medication, unlike therapy, is not always a crucial aspect of recovery for those struggling with mental health.
“At CAPS, we believe that therapy is an important and essential aspect of treatment,” Varzos wrote in an email to The Argus. “Medication can sometimes enhance this modality, but it is not always indicated.”
Varzos works around 20 hours a week, usually split up between three days. She sees between 10 and 12 students each day she works. Because Varzos’ position is new this year, her role is still evolving. In addition to providing students with diagnostic and medication management, she refers CAPS patients to other mental health programs that may be better suited to their needs.
“CAPS may act as an intermediate crisis management service, ultimately providing referral and recommendation to a level of care that can better accommodate a student’s needs (such as biweekly therapy, intensive outpatient program, or hospital evaluation),” Varzos wrote.
One of Varzos’ main responsibilities has been to refer students with mental health struggles to community providers in Middletown. Currently, she is compiling a list of local providers, taking into consideration financial concerns, the limited coverage of some types of health insurance, and differences in student needs based on individual diagnoses and personal struggles.
Rachel Kaly ’17, who recently published an article in Method Magazine titled “I Am Not What I Am” about her battle with an eating disorder and bipolar disorder, was frustrated by the suggestion to see a local psychologist instead of a CAPS therapist.
“They…suggested I get a psychologist in Middletown,” Kaly recalled from her experience with CAPS last year. “Which is fine, but…if we have a mental health center on campus why [not] use that?”
Many students, like Kaly, are prescribed medication by doctors at home and must have either a CAPS professional or a psychiatrist in Middletown prescribe the medication again.
“This is actually a very common scenario,” D’Andrea explained. “They have a medication provider at home, but the doctor says, ‘Listen, I’m not going to be prescribing for you while you’re at Wesleyan. I can’t see you, I can’t monitor you; you’re in another state.’ So that’s fine, we can see that student, we can prescribe medication, as long as they’re willing to get hooked in with a therapist and come in at least a couple times a semester for check-ins. And then, over breaks, the student just goes back to their home person.”
Regulations like the aforementioned policy about check-ins mean that the student demand for time at CAPS is high, often too high for the regular staff to accommodate on its own. In addition to its core staff, CAPS employs four externs, students from the University of Hartford’s Doctor of Psychology program who are supervised by an outside psychologist. These externs have a limited caseload in individual therapy, typically between 6 and 10 students per week, and facilitate support groups on the side.
Although D’Andrea is optimistic about the overall role of group therapy among CAPS’ offerings, she notes that these therapist-led groups have had mixed results.
“I think that Wesleyan students in general are more comfortable going to groups when they’re not being run by a therapist,” D’Andrea said. “There have been times we’ve organized groups in the past, and nobody comes…even though I know that there’s a need for it.”
D’Andrea hopes that student-facilitated groups, which emerged for the first time last spring as part of the WeSupport program, will have more success. In WeSupport, a series of workshops taught by D’Andrea and Kidkarndee, students learn how to improve their interpersonal relationships and how to be a peer health advocate within the University community. The program has been incredibly popular, according to D’Andrea, with a wait list of 20-40 students each semester since it began in 2012.
“There seems to be a really strong interest by Wesleyan students in just supporting each other and being able to be present for each other,” D’Andrea said. “I think Wesleyan students really care about each other, and they want to learn about how to be more effective at supporting each other.”
Students who graduate from WeSupport can become eligible to facilitate some of CAPS’ mental health support groups, although they are not required to do so.
“[WeSupport] just helps people to become empathic and more effective at supporting people, but there are more opportunities for people who want to go on and become involved in the mental health community in a more formal way,” D’Andrea said. “So for those students, I do day-long trainings in active listening and in group facilitation.”
Gruber participated in a six week WeSupport program this fall and found the experience applicable to campus life as well as rewarding for her personal recovery.
“Every week we covered a different topic,” Gruber said. “We did disorder eating/eating disorder. We covered sexual assault, we covered drinking and drug abuse, we covered suicide fixation, we covered depression and anxiety. And they really went into sort of how these things manifest on campus…and how to deal with that if you start to see these things coming up in friends. It was one of the most helpful things, one of the most helpful tools that I found.”
Another popular service offered by CAPS is the crisis appointments, which last for 30 minutes and can be booked over the phone the day of. Currently, with demand for therapy far outpacing the number of clinicians available, these appointments have become one of the ways of accommodating student overflow.
“The [crisis appointments] are booked solid every day,” D’Andrea said. “And I think part of that is because of people experiencing crises, like true crises, and I think the other part is just the demand for our services.”
For those who do not use crisis hours, the wait time for a one-on-one therapy appointment at CAPS can be up to two weeks.
An anonymous Wesleyan student, who has been diagnosed with OCD and depressive disorder, described her experience with CAPS as positive despite long waiting periods, but believes this may be because of her improving condition.
“For me, it’s not that bad because I’ve been getting a lot better, so it isn’t a big deal,” the student said. “But I have friends who… made an appointment like two weeks ago [in November], and the only open slot [was] in December. So yeah, I do feel like it’s understaffed.”
The crisis appointments are also an important resource for the deans, who often reserve them on the spot for students who become distressed over the course of a meeting.
D’Andrea says she would like to see more involvement on the part of faculty, however, in steering students towards CAPS.
“Faculty do use us; I would like to see faculty use us more,” D’Andrea said. “Because faculty are in a position to see students all the time and have a sense of what’s typical and what’s not. They might be the first ones to notice when somebody’s struggling.”
Yet D’Andrea acknowledges that direct interactions between CAPS and faculty are not always in the best interest of the student. For example, negotiating academic accommodations with a student’s therapist may put professors in an awkward position.
“In the past, when we’ve tried to speak directly to faculty, [it] can be a little bit challenging, because sometimes a faculty member might…feel pressured, whether or not there’s any intention to pressure them,” D’Andrea said.
For this reason, CAPS now relies on the class deans as an intermediary in advocating for students’ academic success.
“What we find works the best is to get permission [from the student] to speak with the class dean, [and] we can have a really open discussion with the class dean about how the student’s emotional struggles are impacting their academic performance,” D’Andrea said. “And then the class dean reaches out and communicates directly with the faculty.”
CAPS is responsible for designating students’ mental illness as severe enough to merit disability accommodations. However, D’Andrea explained that since the threshold for ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) recognition is very high, it’s rare for students to receive this designation.
“First, we would need an ongoing relationship with the student; we would need to know the student really well and have a history of seeing them,” D’Andrea said. “And then clinically, we would need to… strongly believe that three criteria are met: one, that the student’s struggle does rise to the level of disability as legally defined… [Two], we need to believe that that disability is causing severe impairment in an area of functioning… and then number three would be that we would need to believe that the proposed accommodation is the only remaining way to mitigate the impairment caused by the severe disability.”
For students who do meet these criteria, Laura Patey, the Associate Dean for Student Academic Resources who oversees Wesleyan’s Disability Resources and the Peer Advising and Tutoring programs, is a crucial resource.
While not every student seeking help will come into contact with her, she is a valuable starting point for many who do not know where to go first.
“Part of my job is helping students connect with the resources that are available on campus, and through that ultimately resources that are available in the community,” Patey said.
Patey works with students who seek her out, as well as ones who are referred to her by friends, faculty, and the class deans. She now works with over 300 students, more than 10 percent of the Wesleyan student body. On a case-by-case basis, she walks students through all possible options.
“I’m trying to empower students to make those decisions,” she said. “I think it’s really important to assess where a student is, and part of that assessment for me is to help that student identify who the particular supports are.”
In most cases, Patey poses speaking with a therapist at CAPS as a useful first step. To help with more difficult decisions, such as whether or not to take a medical leave, Dean Patey worked with the class deans last year to devise a detailed decision tree chart to help students more fully comprehend their options.
“I like to actually lay out for the student,” Patey said. “‘Well, you could do this. You could stay in all of your classes and continue with what you’re doing, and here are the risks and benefits of that. You could perhaps take a lighter course load and finish those courses successfully, but there are consequences related to that. Or you could take a medical leave.’ I’m laying out the range of options so that students feel that they are part of the decision making.”
The decision to take a medical leave is a collaboration between the student, CAPS, and hir class dean.
While the University has options and resources for students struggling with their mental health, such as CAPS therapy services and the medical leave process, the intricate nature of mental illness and its unique manifestation in each individual makes finding solutions difficult.
Gruber sees the option of medical leave as a chance for growth. She chose to take medical leave after struggling with an eating disorder and depression during her first year at Wesleyan.
“I think that’s sort of the problem around medical leave, there’s this big stigma that it’s forced upon you and it’s a bad thing,” Gruber said. “I don’t think it has to be that. I’m not trying to say like sometimes—yeah, sometimes it is necessary, and sometimes it should be forced. Because sometimes being here is going to be so detrimental to your health that you need to go home and take care of yourself.”
Kaly considered taking medical leave last year, but thought that the choice would create a false expectation that the campus climate she would return to after leave would be any different.
“I’m not sure how much [medical leave] would accomplish,” Kaly said. “Because it doesn’t feel like anything here is going to change, if that makes sense. I might go off and figure some shit out, but at the end of the day if I come back here and nothing has changed it could very well put me back where I started.”
Even after students take time away from Wesleyan to prioritize their mental health, the transition back to campus can be daunting. After completing a treatment program for an eating disorder this past summer, Kaly said that self-care remains a full-time job.
“People don’t understand how much energy goes into making sure that you’re OK when that’s never really been a part of your lifestyle,” Kaly said. “Once you’re out of treatment [that] doesn’t mean you’re cured. It means you still have a shit ton of work to do…. The amount of energy that it takes to make sure that you’re able to attend classes is outrageous. And people who don’t have to deal with that really don’t understand that at all.”
Gruber echoed the sentiment that self-care is full-time work for someone who struggles with mental health. She commented that Wesleyan’s campus culture does not foster lifestyles that prioritize self-care.
“I think there is a tremendous amount of pressure to be constantly busy, an overachiever at everything, both academically and socially,” Gruber said. “Finding that balance…was tremendously difficult because I thought that I had to be the top at all my classes and be a social butterfly every weekend. Because you look around and that’s what everybody’s doing. And people who aren’t doing that, you don’t really see.”
Adam Jacobs ’15 spoke to the inexorable pull to be in the swarm of busy-bee students. After withdrawing from the University and reapplying for the 2014-2015 school year, he immediately re-assumed the role of a high achieving student despite his expectation that he would feel detached from the University’s pace.
“Within a week, when it was like all these assignments, I want to do well,” Jacobs said. “I was like, ‘Shit. I’m just like everyone else.’ It was like a second. And now after a few weeks, I feel just like the old self. I’m churning out work, it’s like right back in that role.”
Kaly said that many students do not understand how detrimental Wesleyan’s high-stress environment can be for someone struggling with their mental health. Even when students are aware that mental health is campus concern, they are often not prepared to approach the topic in conversation.
“I also think that on this campus people are so afraid of saying the wrong thing, which can be good—people are definitely very PC,” Kaly said. “But that can also be a hindrance to open, honest dialogue when the people who want to be open and honest feel like no one is being open and honest with them.”
D’Andrea’s dual focus on therapy as well as outreach and education strives to end this stunted dialogue.
“I always want to look for ways we can be a resource for the whole campus community,” D’Andrea said.
In response to years of trouble with the fraternities on campus, Wesleyan University recently announced that all residential Greek organizations must become co-educational. While I’m glad my alma mater is taking action, Wesleyan has fallen far short of a meaningful solution to the problems on campus that fraternities cause. The real solution, or at least the first step towards one, is banning fraternities from campus, not just at Wesleyan, but nationwide.
I’ve been aware of the ongoing issues with Greek life at Wesleyan since my time as a student there (class of 2010). At the same time, I’ve always thought of Wesleyan as a progressive institution; I chose it not in small part for its reputation as a university that leads by example in promoting fair treatment for all.
On first glance, the decision to include women in fraternities seems consistent with that ideology. So when I got an email yesterday from the University president informing the Wesleyan community that all that our frats were going co-ed, my immediate reaction was pride. Go Wes, woo for our gender-neutral dorms and bathrooms, and all that jazz, right? Even though the handful of frats had seemed to me to be elitist and a negative influence on campus, making them co-ed at least seemed like a step in the direction toward making them more inclusive.
Then I started seeing the news articles about the University’s new policy popping up all over the media. I first saw a story on Newser titled “Rape Factory Frat Ordered to Admit Women.” It didn’t occur to me to link that story to the email from Wesleyan—until I saw the picture accompanying the article, which was unmistakably the Wesleyan Campus. Then I noticed articles on the New York Times’ home page, Google News, CNN. I heard it mentioned on my local NPR station, and my mom even forwarded me an article from my hometown paper, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. While the tone of the pieces varied, all of them mentioned that Wesleyan’s solution to the problem of sexual assault and binge drinking at fraternities on campus was to demand that women be allowed into fraternities.
Put bluntly, the absurdity of Wesleyan’s response becomes obvious: There is a campus organization known as “the rape factory.” The President has to decide how to deal with it. Should he kick out the responsible students? Fine or abolish the fraternities? The president thoughtfully weighs his options and settles on an even better idea: maybe all the drunken raping will go away if women move in, with the rapists.
Ridiculous, right? What troubles me more, though, are the harmful and insidious attitudes that could lead even a progressive university to see this as a reasonable solution to a serious problem. It’s victim-blaming and slut-shaming taken to a new level: by foisting the burden for stopping bad behavior from both the young men responsible for committing it and the administration charged with creating a safe environment for all students onto the victims, the university buys into a rash of myths about women. The myth that females are naturally more controlled and moral than males, that they can keep young men’s worst behavior in check just by being present in everyday life. The myth that women who are guests or dates, rather than housemates, are asking for it or at least knowingly putting themselves in a vulnerable situation. They myth that most college sexual assault is morning-after regret that won’t happen among people who know one another well.
But there are even worse messages in this choice of consequences. “Okay, guys,” the university is saying, “you were really bad, committing felonies and everything, so here’s your punishment: living with icky women!” Using women as an aversive consequence equivalent to say, shunning, huge fines, or jail terms, says mountains about how our culture values—or doesn’t—an entire gender.
In the wake of Wesleyan’s current notoriety, I’m sure we will see loyal fraternity brothers rushing to defend their beloved chapters. They will tout the virtues of fraternities: their contributions to the housing options on campus and the social lives of member and non-member students; the lifelong friendships, leadership training, and networking opportunities; the chances to contribute to charity; the dominance of fraternity brothers in the halls of government, higher learning, and the upper levels of corporations. And of course, they will remind university presidents and boards of the high levels of donations by fraternal alumni.
But fraternities are Trojan horses for universities—and American culture. In the twenty-first century and in the wake of one Greek scandal after another, we cannot ignore the fact that the gifts that fraternities bring to higher learning mask a dark inner belly, even beyond the binge drinking and sexual assaults that prompted Wesleyan’s new policy. Hazing, classism, racism, homophobia and a plethora of other evils lurk inside the world of fraternities, and diffuse outward subtly but powerfully as fraternity brothers graduate and move into other American institutions, particularly into those powerful fraternity-like ones, from the military and the NFL to Congress and Wall Street. Perhaps it is telling that Wesleyan’s president, a Wesleyan alum, is an Alpha Delta Phi man.
It is time to recognize that fraternities cannot be easily reformed; the national organizations wield so much financial and social power that even progressive, well-intentioned universities like Wesleyan cannot impose reasonable consequences or restrictions on campus chapters. It is time for universities to accept the responsibility of providing the benefits fraternities offer to all their students, not just the elite few who have the correct pedigrees and budgets to afford the costs of going Greek. It is time for all universities to say farewell to fraternities and start the hard work of reforming the harmful attitudes that the Greek system has fostered.
Colleges won’t risk the status quo unless we give them a financial incentive. I won’t be making any more donations to Wesleyan until “the rape factory” and all groups like it are gone from campus. I encourage alumni of all universities to speak with their wallets as well. And I encourage prospective students to direct their tuition checks to schools that make a commitment to Greek-free life.
Kyle Baicker-McKee is a member of the class of 2010.
“No probable cause exists to file any charges against Darren Wilson.” Thus the St. Louis County prosecutor, Robert P. McCulloch concludes another chapter of an 18-year old Michael Brown story. Opinions about the strike with Missouri police forces that happened on the evening of the 24th are crystal clear. One camp is best represented by a user Looney Floyd who posted on the ustream.tv page of BassemMasri the following comment: ”Don’t rob convenience stores! Don’t steal cigars! Don’t assault people! and you probably won’t get shot.” Coincidentally, BassemMasri’s live reporting of the events from near the Ferguson police station was disrupted by an incident: his camera got stolen and he did not get it back. The other side by the mother of Michael Brown who yelled “Defend himself from what!” when the prosecutor talked about the officer’s actions. Both camps, however agree on one thing: that protest, if necessary, should have channelled the frustrat ion to make positive change. As expected, a crowd flowed the streets of Ferguson and it went wrong: police force was animated.
Police force is an instrument by which government enforces law to protect the order in the state. One of the functions of law enforcement is to predict and prevent crime. What crime was the government prepared to fight on S. Florissant Road that necessitated to display to reporters’ cameras images from a 1984 screening? The most shocking is precisely this exhibitory aestheticization of violence that was preached by Mussolini futurists. However, while they envisioned a look of the future soldier with the eyes of a painter, the reality took a completely different shape.
Imagine a family that lives in a village and grows apple trees in their backyard. They decide to get a dog that will protect their harvest from robbers. It serves you well: you drink tea with your neighbours, and the robbers stay away from your harvest. However, with time you find your harvest to increase exponentially and you get yourself a wolf. You continue to drink tea with the neighbours but not as frequently. With even more harvest, you eventually get a hyena leaves you without guests at all. What makes this family hold a at home hyena? Did robbers get more dangerous or numerous? But how can this be if all you is to grow apples in your backyard?
Clearly, the situation is that hyena has outgrown the family and keeps it in fear together with the robbers and the neighbours. The hyena shows its jaws to make you know who’s the owner of the apples, and you better stay away from it or six shots fired right now. Bang! The interactive installations of law enforcement methods have proved to be highly artistic but discouragingly overwhelming. One can hardly look without emotions at guardsmen pointing assault rifles at you. Do you who is your hyena going to assault? What kind of crime to be prevented requires snipers on top of wheeled citadels?
The story revealed how much a government of a well-developed country can be ready to spend money on hyperreal military happenings. Law has been put over a man. Dressing in next-gen soldier outfits, Ferguson police acts not as a prophylaxis law enforcement agency, but as a suppressing actor devoid of any humanness. It discriminates against the human body as one big war machine with guns instead of hands, armour instead body, and gas masks instead of heads — a cyborg breathing tear gas. Ferguson police speaks the language of crown dissipation sirens, bullets, and colonel on duty dialect. You are objectified as a criminal.
We have come to merge Ford’s assembly line with our home, school, church, and army. The American dream has become perplexedly communist: to be a “nice smooth operator” — more Gates, than Jobs. Government learns to satisfy our needs without interrogating our work on conveyer. And the more it does so the more it educates itself in mechanised suppression, leaving the most real thing that there is — pain and struggle — in disposal of law enforcement machines.
If we do not want shamefacedly accept the reality of a police state then we have to recognise our oppressed fellows on a bench. We have to emphasise with instrumentally criminalised individuals, or out fate is to grow together with the machine.
I am abroad, everything feels hard, and I am very sad.
I don’t blame this on you. It’s not your fault that in Sweden the sun sets at 2 pm, nor is it your fault that 30 Rock reruns are much more appealing than “getting myself out there” and doing things. It’s not your fault that the program I selected is an academic joke, or that my friends back at school aren’t great at keeping in touch, or even that I chose a major that requires going abroad.
Those are all things I can’t blame you for. In fact, there isn’t really that much that you’ve done wrong. To be honest, I’m probably just looking for a scapegoat so that I can feel less guilty for being sad and unproductive and lonely.
That said, I’ve been thinking a lot about you and the abroad process recently. I wrote a post on my study abroad blog last week about being depressed that apparently struck chords with a lot of people. I got Facebook messages from family members, from seniors who had been abroad, and from other kids who are currently abroad (the largest percentage), saying that they were feeling (or had felt) the exact same way, and were relieved that someone had put it in writing. It’s very comforting to know that other people share your feelings on a subject, mainly because it means that you’re not crazy.
However, while knowing you’re sane is nice, it left me feeling really weird. It felt wrong to me that so many people were writing me saying things like (and these are quotes):
“You articulated so well exactly everything I’ve been thinking and feeling lately.”
“I feel like I’m going through a similar time.”
“We can be depressed, together.”
“I think part of the abroad experience is sort of coping with loneliness.”
“Everything you said hit home really hard with me because I’ve been feeling this way too and I’ve had a pretty rough time since being in this country.”
“So much of this sums up my experience abroad as well.”
“Everyone cries themselves to sleep during some parts of their lives”
and my favorite, which I strongly relate to:
“I was thinking about how it always feels like I’m in an unemotional but definitely not happy fog and then I suggested to myself that maybe I should try antidepressants and then I thought about being happy all the time and I shivered to myself and decided to keep my dismalness.”
Notice a theme? To be frank, I expected to get a lot of sympathetic messages. A lot of “hang in there!”s and “we love you!”s and “I’ve always thought you were super hot, and I just wanted to tell you that when you get back to campus I’m going to jump your bones!!!”s.
Ok, well maybe I was just hoping for the last one. But that’s sorta along the lines of what I was expecting. But instead of sympathy, I got empathy. That is to say, instead of people pitying me, they were telling me that they’ve also been in my shoes.
So while all of these things were comforting, I was seriously disturbed by their frequency. If everyone is feeling like this, why am I the only one talking about it? And also, why was I never warned that it was a thing?
The first one is fairly easy. No one talks about depression because there’s this dumb social stigma that makes depression something to be ashamed of. I personally think it should be treated like breaking a leg. Like you say to someone, “Hey, I’ve been really depressed lately.” And they’re like, “That really sucks. Is there anything I can do for you?” and you say, “I don’t think so, I’ll let you know if you can,” and then you continue on with life. That would be cool. But it doesn’t really work like that.
That second question, “Why was I never warned this was a thing?” is the one that concerns me more, and feels more tackle-able. And more than that, “Now that I know this is a thing, why do I feel so alone?”
From the start of my abroad process, I have felt very alone. Some things about abroad are just things you have to accept, but there’s a lot about it that I feel is unnecessarily difficult. Too often, I feel like I read angsty letters that present problems without solutions. I think the solutions here are fairly simple, so I’m going to suggest some for you. This way, you (Wesleyan), have no choice but to acknowledge that you could fix this stuff, and are just choosing not to. Which would make you look like a tool. Just saying.
PROBLEM: The abroad office is totally inaccessible. If you’ve tried to study abroad, you’ve probably been frustrated before by the fact that they’re only open for drop in two hours a day. Last semester, I had class every day, and the only time that jived with my schedule was the hour from 10 AM to 11 AM on Mondays. And like, I know that it was still possible, but when it came down to an extra hour of sleep, or waking up an hour earlier to read past accounts of a program that I had already applied to, which was I going to choose? I’m a college student, not Superman (though, I understand the confusion—we both have wavy hair and wear more spandex than we should in public). So why couldn’t I just flip through a book?
SOLUTION: Accessibility. This is an easy one. I totally understand that there are only a few employees to help hundreds of students, so they can keep on doing what they’re doing, having visiting hours, and scheduling appointments. What made me annoyed was that I wanted to flip through a book, and had to wake up at 10 AM to do so, only for 45 minutes, before rushing to class. My solution to this is simple. One solution: Keep the books in one of the libraries, so that students can have access to it whenever they have the time. I’m not really worried that anyone is going to run off with the hefty binders of study abroad anecdotes, but if you’re worried about theft, keep them at a reference desk. The other, more obvious solution: put this shit online. There is no reason that the evaluations we fill out couldn’t be on a database that the study abroad web page links to. I can see it now…it has a blue and orange color scheme, star ratings like yelp, and an easy search function. Would that really be so hard? I’m not even asking you to take all those old entries and put them online. Just start now, with this year. And three years from now, you can clear all those clunky binders off the shelves, and it will feel like Christmas in July. Or whatever month it is that you decide to throw them out.
PROBLEM: I did not know I was going to be so sad. There’s a page of the Study Abroad website entitled “Culture Shock,” that warns me about the dangers of, you guessed it, Culture Shock (which sounds to me like a terrible 80s kids movie, probably starring Jamie Lee Curtis). All you have to do is find the OIS homepage (good luck), click “While Abroad” on the left, and then click “Culture Shock.” There, you’ll find helpful tips such as: “Remember your strengths!”, “Be curious.” And my personal favorite: “Develop a hobby.” Do you feel helped?I do. Oh wait sorry, I misspelled that, it was supposed to read: “No I do not fucking feel helped.”
SOLUTION: Tell us that there is help, and we can get it. Again, seems obvious, right? My solution to this one would be simple. Send us a little email about a week into the program, telling us about culture shock. Cut the generalizations and stuff I see on posters in boring people’s dorm rooms. In kind, non-medical terms, say, “Hey! This can be hard. Here are some philosophical and concrete ways to stave of sadness in a strange new place. Are you feeling particularly sad right this moment? Here is a GIF of a puppy dressed like a bear running on a treadmill, because who doesn’t need that right now? If the puppy isn’t helping enough, here’s the email of a person that could help you.” This topic also brings us to an even bigger issue:
PROBLEM: I need actual help, and I don’t think you can actually help me. Okay, so I’m sad. Like, really sad. Like, needing therapy sad. What can I do about it? I could ask my parents for a therapist, but how would they do that? They could research good therapists, try to find one they’d think I’d like, and then maybe set up a Skype call? That’s a lot of work. And a lot of kids aren’t as lucky as I am, and don’t feel comfortable asking their parents for a therapist. Let’s say I’m one of them. I could try to get a therapist on my own here in Sweden, but a) I wouldn’t even know how to start, b) I don’t have a Swedish phone, and c) they have free health care here, but I do not, and getting a therapist here would involve me trying to negotiate health insurance, which a) sounds stressful, and b) would involve my parents. Which is what I was trying to avoid in this situation. That brings us to CAPS. CAPS is supposed to be there for me, but I honestly never really feel like they are. Raise your hands if you’ve ever thought about going to CAPS, but then decided it was too much work. Everyone? Great. I went once, and it was ok. The therapist was nice, and he gave me his card. But a few days later I tried to schedule another appointment, and they were booked solid for the next few days. They asked if it was “urgent,” and, well, no, I guess it wasn’t urgent, so I told myself I’d call a few days later and try again. I never did. I know a lot of kids at Wesleyan who’ve been through the same thing. The truth of the matter is that it’s really really hard to get therapy at Wesleyan. Like, way harder than it should be. Way more inconvenient, way more uncomfortable, and way more effort. Add that I can’t call because it’s international and I don’t have a phone, multiply by a 6 hour time difference, divide by the fact that I don’t even know if they would do a phone call, and CAPS is basically out of the question. (And x= 7, by the way.)
SOLUTION: Have some kind of abroad-specific program. Oh, and hire more people. Wesleyan costs a lot. I think we could afford another therapist or two. Okay? Okay. Moreover, I’m currently paying a full semester’s worth of tuition to go to a program that is much cheaper. Wesleyan is making a huge profit off of me right now, and I don’t think it’s that much to ask that they at least check in to make sure I’m doing okay. Speaking of which, we should really have an abroad-specific program that deals with culture shock, isolation, and depression. Claiming you don’t have enough resources for that? Okay. How about some kind of program where people who have been abroad but are at Wesleyan take a short course on how to comfort people with depression. Then we have an anonymous emailing site where kids who are abroad can email people who have been abroad (both are anonymous), and say “Help! I am sad!” and the ex-abroaders can say, “That sucks. I was in a similar place. It gets a lot better.” I know this might not sound like a big deal, but I think it would really help. Especially because a lot of the time, I’m terrified that this new depression thing is something that will stick, that I’ll spend the rest of my life in this funk. And having people there to recite the Trevor Project mantra could actually really help. I think people would volunteer to do it, especially if they were helped by it, and also because it would take such little time. Sound good? Good. These emails could include concrete tips on how to be happier, like, “It’s winter! Make paper snowflakes!” or “Buy yourself some chocolate today. You deserve it.” or “The Ampersand photoshopped Michael Roth’s face onto a [insert obscure animal here]. Read it and laugh.” I think that would be nice.
PROBLEM: Pre-Reg is the literal worst. Can everyone just say this one with me? Pre-Reg is the literal worst. I was talking to a friend on my program who goes to Brown. She was registering for classes as I sat next to her. She looked at her screen, clicked a button, and said, “Yay! I got all my classes!” I nearly punched her in the face. Instead I smiled and told her that she was lucky, because every semester I have only gotten one class in Pre-Reg. It makes everything so stressful. Thankfully I have ended up in semi-interesting and relevant classes, but still. Come on. I was annoyed to find out upon coming to Europe that as hard as Pre-Reg is in Middletown, it’s way harder here. You can’t go to professors’ office hours, and so you become just a name amongst the flood of emails they get. Your advisor isn’t as readily available, and you can’t as readily ask other students which classes they liked or didn’t like. I was also lucky that the 8 AM adjustment period time was actually just mid-afternoon for me, but I imagine that for people in countries with other time zones, that was probably an issue.
SOLUTION: Make Pre-Reg not the worst. The number one thing would be to just have more classes available at Wesleyan. I understand though that this is easier said than done, and requires a lot more money than we have, probably. Okay, fine. Here are some other solutions. My number one “let’s just make things better” idea would be to make it pretty. Our ePortfolio is the ugliest thing of all time. Here are some things prettier than our current system: the gorgon Medusa, Steven Santagati’s personality, the exterior of the Nics. This is such an easy fix. For the love of God, hire some programmer to make it prettier, more accessible, and more organized. Have some senior do it as his programming thesis. I want my ePortfolio to be so beautiful that upon opening the page, I reach climax. I want WesMaps to be so beautiful that Natalie Portman would play it in a movie. I want my Pre-Reg class list to be so beautiful that those whose hearts aren’t true will look on it and explode into dust, like vampires. Do this, and I promise that student morale will immediately go up. Also, maybe have some kind of Pre-Reg timeline that’s readily available (and also in the color scheme that our now beautiful Pre-Reg is in). Every year I find a class that looks great, only to realize that the date for sending the professor a POI request was a month ago. And that is the worst feeling. (Oh. Other than this fucking terrible depression.)
PROBLEM: I’m cut off from campus and it feels like none of my friends care or miss me. One of the hardest parts of being abroad that no one tells you about is that you don’t know what’s going on around campus. You want to believe that Wesleyan is on pause while you’re gone, a la the classic Adam Sandler film Click.** The realization that it still is changing and growing and continuing without your presence is really sad, and being out of the loop is like being the one person at WesRave without the playlist. You can dance along, and pretend you’re just like everyone else, but then N’Sync comes on and everyone shrieks, and you feel very, very alone.
SOLUTION: Skype Your Friends Day. This was a hard one to come up with a solution for. Friendships work, or don’t work, on an individual level, so coming up with a way to help everyone’s is basically futile. I think it would be nice, though, if the university (or this fun emailing program I came up with, probably) would email the whole junior class, or even the whole school, just saying, “Hey! If you have a friend who’s abroad that you haven’t talked to in a little while, shoot them an email, write them a postcard, plan a skype session. Tell them what’s going on, tell them you love them and miss them. They’ll really appreciate it, and you will too if you ever go abroad.” Wouldn’t that be nice? I think that would be nice.
Dear Wesleyan.
I am abroad, everything feels hard, and I am very sad. I know other people are feeling the same way, and I hope those people read this article, and maybe even begin talking about it. I have outlined some basic problems, and given you some basic solutions. Will you help us, please?
Sincerely,
Johnny
*A different time from when I burst into tears listening to Taylor Swift’s “Red,” which can be seen on Hormones of Wesleyan.
**I have never seen Click and never intend to, because it looks fucking terrible.
“White male privilege” (the term is a neo-Marxist Hail Mary, a strong-armed play to get back in the game) is being gossiped about and romantically linked with the term “fraternity.” Cute linkage, you reckon?
Not half as cute as yours. To whom? To the very incarnation of “white male privilege,” the Crown Prince of Camelot. As the Crown Prince’s wannabe thane on this, your High-land patch of heather, bedazzled by Camelot glam, you invited the heir-apparent and Grand Old Man of the Party of Caring and Compassion to speak at your fiefdom’s gala, Commencement ’08.
That was a bridge too far. I penned a Wespeak decrying your invitation to a man who, years before, had driven a woman off a bridge and sealed her fate by failing to run for help after extricating himself from his flipped-over vehicle as it settled on the bottom in the dead of night. Authors Richard and Thomas Tedrow examine every scrap of evidence available (much of it was unavailable: an autopsy of the body to determine the cause of death) and conclude that the victim had lived for at least four hours in the air pocket ere succumbing to bad breath: her own CO2 had killed her, the water not running in, the oxygen running out.
How did the defendant acquit himself? Was he charged with vehicular homicide? Reckless driving? DUI? All of the above? The one-party state’s liberal senator’s fate was decided, as luck would have it, by the “liberal” role of Justice’s wheels, as honest as Rick’s one wheel in “Casablanca”: charged with leaving the scene of an accident, the driver paid the two dollars and walked. Thus was Justice served by the Bay State’s criminal liberal justice system.
“What difference does it make?” – the plea of another standard bearer of the Party of Caring and Compassion, responding to a question about Benghazi. Not that you, dear Michael would not have gone her one better: “Benghazi? Never heard of it.” Just as you never heard of 9/11. Both of which may be found among your unmentionables.
And this. Within a year of your installation, you brandished a glimpse of your tenure’s personal code of non-academic conduct: then-President Bush, you said, was “undermining the Constitution.” Repercussions? Nil. Not one of your team’s receivers got even close to hauling in your holler-borne heave of a Hail Mary and run with it: not the bumper-sticker composers, who might have gone lyrical, stuck on “Impeach the Texas trawler!” or “Flying Bush, flock off!”; not your rabble-rousing and Rabellaisian (pardon my French) fraternity’s moribund organ, the Lazarus Press; and lastly, not liberal law professors like Jonathan Turley, midnight-riding, alarming: “The Rednecks are coming!”
Turley HAS been alarming of late, reacting (hidebound reactionary!) to Bush’s successor’s extra-Constitutional exploits. And how would the latter-day Paul Revere’s reverberant hue and cry be greeted on High? If not with buckshot (the campus being a gun-free field of battle), most likely with a yard sign (BEWARE THE DOG!) and the shire’s lung-some crier, decrying, “This talk about undermining the Constitution is a tempest in a tea party pot!” Would that be the bark of Wes’s top dog, the Constitution’s formerly bulldog defender and latterly the fan of the Document-shredding fundamental transformer?
What a difference a Messiah’s election makes! The morning after, his Holy Spirit descended upon you, and in a twinkling “undermining the Constitution” became (mirabile dictu!) a dead letter. As dead as a lovely woman (the grieving parents’ only child) driven off a bridge and left to die. As dead as the polished longhand scrivened upon a piece of parchment by a crowd of powdered wigs, a white male privileged fraternity best forgotten: “You must NOT remember this.”
And off with the heads of all alarmists who DO remember that piece. And should an alarming ricochet manage to get through a chink in the boilerplate surrounding your schoolyard’s really cool curriculum, diversions of an activist and carnal kind and approved by you (or would you be giving mere TACIT consent?) will wholly obliterate it.
In addition the students have your course book’s work horse, “Rewriting History: Monopolizing the Narrative.” You have an objection? The course book doesn’t list such creature? Not now, mon vieux, but surely you haven’t forgotten your critter’s old brand name before it was run through We Correct U’s costly (but worth it) state-of-the-art, plutonium-fueled euphemizer (I wish I were making this up), and thanks to which, your hobby horse is now tricked out in a dozen word-robe changes.
A fitting selection (I thought you’d never ask) would be “The Past on Film.” This course on the past is taught, I believe, by a self-confessed and unrepentant postmodernist; a fellow who, touching all the bases, dubs himself a progressive (that is, he’s forward-looking); a humanist (backward-looking); and, romping home, our man for all seasons dubs himself a liberal. And here we must hearken, for the seasoned lib’s astride a strident lyric: “You MUST remember THIS…”
Trigger Warning: This article contains graphic details of sexual assault and may be triggering to some readers.
Dear everyone,
You haven’t heard this before. This isn’t something I talk about. Chances are even if we’re friends, this is new information: at the end of my freshman year, just days before finals week began, I was sexually assaulted.
He didn’t punch me or choke me or scratch me, he wasn’t particularly strong or tall or intimidating, he wasn’t a stranger, but he sexually assaulted me.
I was on Fountain in one of the houses near Freeman. I had spent the night going to parties with three of my really good friends. One of my friends knew the guy, and he introduced me and we started dancing. After a while, we headed back to my freshman dorm. “No sex,” I kept saying to myself as we walked, “no sex”.
It wasn’t that I didn’t like making out with people or flirting or even doing a little bit more, but, as my three good friends I was with that night knew very clearly, I wasn’t comfortable with going all the way with just anyone. It’s not something I take lightly. In fact, I have only ever had sex with two guys in my life. These two guys are not the person who assaulted me. That was not sex. It was assault.
As soon as we got back to my room, I knew I wanted him to leave. He kept pushing me down and saying my name and then commands, like, “don’t use your teeth” and “keep going”. He kept going, and it hurt. It wasn’t pleasant or wonderful like it had been with the person I’d lost my virginity to, or with the guy I’d had feelings for and trusted. I was in my room, but I felt like I was under water. I was trying to tell him to leave and get out of me, but the words wouldn’t come out. The smell of latex penetrated my nose, sickening me to my stomach. I felt wounds opening as he thrust harder and harder. I kept waiting for the end, but it seemed to last forever, and still no words came out.
Then it was over. He left.
I called my best friend from home and started crying. She didn’t know what to do. She told me to go find people to comfort me. Everyone I knew was still out partying, so I went to the room across the hall from mine. One of my best friends lived there, and I thought maybe he would be home since he never went out because of his long distance girlfriend. He opened the door, and I stood there, sobbing. I couldn’t do anything but cry. He comforted me for a while and tried to calm me down, but I couldn’t go back into my room, so he slept on the floor and let me have his bed. I never slept in my dorm room again.
Over the next few days, I faced incredible bias, lack of understanding, and hardships. Most of the time, I lay curled up in a ball on the floor of the friend’s room I stayed in for the rest of the semester. She didn’t know what to do to help me. Another friend had to get clothes out of my room for me to wear each day because I couldn’t go into my room myself anymore. Each day was harder than the last.
I have lost a lot since then. During finals week, I lost focus on my studies and had to ask all of my teachers for extensions on my exams. My grades have slipped consistently since then. I lost around 20 pounds the next semester, because eating became hard for me. It still is. I changed my gym schedule, because seeing my attacker at the gym made the whole night come flooding back and would leave me feeling nauseous, scared, and crying. I still avoid the gym from 4-6. Last spring, when I finally told my mother about what had happened, she didn’t believe me. She told me it was my fault for getting to a point with a guy where he couldn’t walk away, that I should have controlled the situation better. My best friend from home that I had called right after the assault happened-she and I stopped speaking after she too told me I was somewhat to blame for what had happened. That other friend, the one who let me sleep in his room that night after the assault, he and I eventually stopped being friends as well. He never really believed me either.
Dear everyone, today I cried because I read an article in the Argus about a friend of mine who was assaulted this year, called “Is This Why? An Account of Sexual Assault at Wesleyan University”. I cried because I have always wanted to press charges for what happened to me but never did. I cried because my assaulter will never be expelled, because I was more pessimistic than my friend was. Unlike her, the belief I held that from the beginning my case was a lost cause was enough to convince me to never press charges.
Sometimes I’m still nauseous at the gym. Sometimes I still think that when I look at the toilet paper, I will see blood on it like I did the day after what happened to me. Sometimes I still mistake the pain I get in my legs from weight lifting for the pain I felt in my legs that morning. Sometimes I still sit in silence for a time and cry, alone.
Dear everyone, you are not alone. No one is. We have an opportunity to change the way that sexual assault is dealt with on college campuses. We have the opportunity to make sure no one else feels the way I have felt for over two years now. We can make sure that survivors of sexual assault understand that it is not their fault and that they deserve justice. Together, we can change the Wesleyan policies on sexual assault and Title IX so that no one else ever chooses not to press charges against their assaulter because they are afraid their case will be lost before it even begins.
This Sunday, there is a chance for a Middletown native to accomplish a major sports feat. Joey Logano, born in Middletown, is one of four drivers in contention to win the Sprint Cup, the championship prize for the highest level of NASCAR. The four drivers will race among the field of 43 in the Ford EcoBoost 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway. Whoever finishes best will be crowned the Sprint Cup Champion.
Joey currently drives the No. 22 Shell-Pennzoil Ford for Team Penske. He first rose to NASCAR fame as a teenager, becoming the youngest driver ever to win a race in the Nationwide Series, NASCAR’s second highest level of racing, at 18 years, 21 days old, and then a year later becoming the youngest driver to ever win a Sprint Cup race at 19 years, 35 days old. Since these feats, Joey has been widely seen as one of NASCAR’s brightest young stars.
Despite his early success, this year marks Joey’s first chance at winning the Championship. Now 24, Joey has undoubtedly had the best season of his young career. He has won five races, second only to his teammate Brad Keselowski, and has comfortably advanced through each round of the Chase for the Sprint Cup playoff system. While Joey’s season has been a success no matter the outcome of this weekend’s race, he is considered one of the two favorites to win the championship. Joey’s winning the Cup is a very real possibility and this success would likely be among the most significant sports victories ever achieved by a Middletown or even Connecticut native.
Although Joey and his family moved to the South in his teenage years so he could further pursue racing, he has remained connected to the area and regularly acknowledges Middletown as his hometown. He has contributed greatly to the local community through his charitable foundation, and with his help, The Connection – a Connecticut non-profit tackling poverty and homelessness – was recently able to open Logano’s Place, a transitional housing unit for homeless men and woman in Middletown. Should Joey succeed in winning the Cup, he has stated he will consider it a victory on behalf of Middletown and Connecticut. Perhaps there will even be a parade down Main Street.
I encourage you all to watch Joey’s attempt at victory or at the very least think positive thoughts for him. The race is scheduled to begin at 3 p.m. and will be shown on ESPN. I wish the best of luck to Joey and his Penske team and recommend you keep abreast of this potential piece of town history.
Jacob Blumenthal is a member of the class of 2013.
Trigger Warning: This article gives a detailed account of a sexual assault and may be triggering for some readers.
There are few things more degrading than being sexually assaulted. Your body is forced to submit to the absolute authority of someone else. You desperately try to have your voice heard, but your protests are meaningless. Your denials of consent are disregarded until you eventually recognize that you are powerless. You close your eyes and wait until it is over. But time becomes your enemy. It slows until every second becomes an hour and every minute becomes a day. It slows until every excruciating sordid detail of the attack is burned into your memory and you are branded for life.
On September 10, 2014, I was violently sexually assaulted in my on-campus residence by an acquaintance.
He pinned me to the bed and started kissing me. He began groping at my breasts, my back, my hips, and my waist. I pushed against his chest and begged him to stop. He became violent. He bit my lower lip, my neck, and my stomach until my body ached from the pain. I whimpered and begged him to stop, but he was relentless and became increasingly infuriated by my resistance. When I would not submit, he continued to abuse my body. He grabbed my neck to kiss me again, and pressed down on my windpipe. I could barely breath.
I reported my assault the next morning to the Office of Public Safety.
I spent the next month answering questions about that night. I was frequently asked if I had “actually said no” or if I had led him on. The witnesses were asked similar questions: if the marks on my body were bite marks or “just hickeys,” if I was trying to make my ex-boyfriend “jealous,” and more infuriatingly, if I had been “flirting with him” before the attack.
The Title IX Office and The Office of the Dean of Students did not offer me support. They informed me that it was incredibly possible that even if a sexual assault had taken place, he may not be found responsible for a violation of the Student Code of Non-Academic Conduct. I was informed me that were he to be found responsible, a likely punishment would be suspension for a semester, meaning he would return to Wesleyan before I graduate. They insisted that no matter what though I was safe, because I have a No Contact Order and should he violate that I should contact Public Safety immediately.
They never said it explicitly, but this is what they meant: You have no evidence that what took place was non-consensual. You will lose your case. Give up now and accept the No Contact Order as good enough. Despite Wesleyan’s “commitment” to due process and protecting victims of sexual assault, I did not feel safe or supported. I felt blamed for what happened to me. It was clear that no one was fighting for my best interest or the best interest of the female student body.
I went into the hearing knowing I could not win my case.
A partition haphazardly draped across the conference room was the only thing separating me from my assailant in the hearing. I sat anxiously in silence unless asked a specific question by the panel. Even then, I spoke meekly, stuttering and shaking as I spoke. My attacker did not wait for questions. He spoke clearly and freely. He assassinated my character and claimed I was “lying to tarnish his good name.” He categorically denied violently pinning me to the bed, biting me, and choking me. He claimed that he “ostensibly felt” that I was enjoying the encounter. When asked how he got consent he responded without pausing “I did not get consent, but…”
The results came back the next day: not responsible by virtue of implied consent.
I had lost my case even though he admitted that he had not gotten consent. Worse yet, I was denied an appeal because the bias in the case file had not “adversely impacted the outcome of the hearing.” It dawned on me that I was going to have to see him on-campus for the next two years and he would never be punished for what he had done to me.
More terrifying than these realizations, was a painful truth about Wesleyan: they were going to protect my assailant instead of me.
Why? Because he pays full tuition and will continue to do so for the next three semesters, while I can barely afford a third of Wesleyan’s sticker price. Because he is an athlete, while I am a researcher in a chemistry lab. Because finding another member of one of the three residential fraternities would result in disastrous media coverage that the university cannot afford, while allowing another victim to be silenced and abused is just a statistic.
Dear Wesleyan:
I am writing to let you know that I finally give up on my case. You have received your final round of emails from me imploring you for assistance. I will no longer attempt to schedule meetings with members of the Office of the Dean of Students or the Title IX Office to get justice. I will no longer bother asking you for help, because I know I will not receive it.
Although I am done fighting for myself, I will continue advocating for other victims until the systematic failures of the current process are resolved.
Wesleyan, I urge you to change the investigative procedures for Title IX violations as well as the policies in the non-academic code of conduct as they pertain to sexual assault and sexual misconduct.
As it stands now, a Public Safety officer collects statements from the complainant, the respondent, and the witnesses. This officer is then responsible for summarizing each statement and submitting this to the official case file. Once a statement is in the file, even if the witness believes information to have been falsely reported or misinterpreted, the statement cannot be amended or removed from the official file.
I believe that this is incredibly inequitable. The current process leaves significant room for interpretation or implicit biased by the investigating officer. For this reason, not one, but two Public Safety officers should be responsible for each Title IX investigation. Moreover, the investigating officers should record and transcribe witness statements, rather than short and vague summaries of conversations that ultimately provide no information.
The current code specifies sexual assault as: “Having or attempting to have sexual intercourse or sexual contact with another individual without consent. This includes sexual intercourse or sexual contact achieved by the use or threat of force or coercion, where an individual does not consent to the sexual act, or where an individual is incapacitated.” Additionally, consent is regarded as “an outward demonstration indicating that an individual has freely chosen to engage in sexual activity. Consent is demonstrated through mutually understandable words and/or actions that clearly indicate a willingness to engage in sexual activity.”
The problem with this definition is that it includes implied consent, or consent inferred from a person’s actions or circumstances. The distinction between “I ostensibly felt that she was enjoying it” and “she was asking for it” becomes non-existent. So how can implied consent be considered consent at all?
If Wesleyan is nearly as progressive as it claims, then it is time to make the switch to the California Policy of consent. Rather than the archaic “no means no” policy, which places the onus on the victim to prove that consent was denied, it stipulates that the accused must prove that a clear affirmation of consent was given by the accuser before every sexual act that occurred during that encounter.
This policy does not mean that you need to sign a waiver or ask “Do you consent to this sexual act now?” Rather, ask your perspective partner, “What feels good for you?” or “What do you want to do right now?” before engaging in sexual activity. Not only that, but also asking for consent along the way to make sure that your partner is still comfortable. And this can be as simple as “Do you like this?” or “How does this feel?” And if the answer to this question is not a resounding “HELL YES,” but an “I guess” or “not really,” then it means no.
Wesleyan, I wake up every night from post-traumatic stress disorder related nightmares every night. I have developed an eating disorder and anxiety. I have withdrawn from the community I love because I am now too afraid to be a part of it. I often consider transferring to another school so I do not need to see my attacker at Pi or in Freeman.
I implore you to protect survivors of sexual assault in a way I was not protected. Do not allow another victim to suffer what I have been through and continue to suffer through. It is time to change a broken system.
I did not get justice for what happened to me, but I am asking that you get justice for the next survivor who comes to you asking for help.
Last week, I checked my Facebook account to find an invitation to a tailgate with the Wesleyan Republicans. I could not attend the tailgate, alas, but I was pleasantly surprised to learn that a new group has formed. I had covered the group’s previous incarnation for the Argus when I was a freshman, only to see it disappear in the years since. The number of people that I presumed would vote for Gov. Mitt Romney in 2012 swiftly declined from the mid-20s to less than 5. Meanwhile, Justice Scalia came to campus to a reception filled with anger, skepticism, and even condoms… before Judith Butler came to a rock-star reaction.
The revival of the College Republicans will shift the momentum of Wesleyan’s political discourse back towards the center. Hopefully, the group will succeed in promoting diversity in thought as much as we all promote diversity in other areas. This is important because the discussions of the ivory tower should be both a creature of the surrounding world and a reaction to it.
I have commented many times – through written prose and verbal conversation – on the dangers of sticking to a pole and making sure that the campus climate does as well. In divided environments like Congress and College Row, immersing oneself completely in one perspective without hearing the other can blind one in harmful ways. Many in the community, I trust, learned that lesson during the harrowing debates over the fraternities. I certainly did – I knew that the fraternities were unsafe once the crowds became messier than a dorm room. But in struggling to navigate party traffic, I did not realize how endangered too many women have felt in those spaces. Without the perspectives of student leaders like Mari Jarris and Chloe Murtagh, I (along with many other men) would not have known that my gender has put too many damsels in distress (did pop culture teach us anything – like not to put them in distress?).
If we can learn that lesson after a debate on a local issue, then why not apply it to national issues? Jenny Davis ’17 said it best: “Left to our own devices, we’re too busy agreeing with one another—and then… trying to out-liberal one another—that we forget to form arguments that are cohesive and argue against what our actual opponents have to say.” She added bluntly, “Without elephants, we’re becoming asses.”
Beating Republicans should not always be the objective for Democrats. Clearly, this perpetual election cycle loop, which repeats the moment the last one’s results are revealed, contributes to our national headache. The rhetoric of our “opponents” may also contain some thoughtful ideas. For example, Democrats could listen to Republicans like the outgoing Sen. Tom Coburn, who recently published his latest edition of the “Wastebook”. That book, of course, offers ideas on how to improve government efficiency and efficacy – for example, not letting the National Institute of Health spend $387,000 on Swedish massages for rabbits. In turn, Republicans could listen more to Democrats on “women’s issues”.
I fear that “compromise” may have turned into a dirty word at Wesleyan, much like it has in Washington. That “c-word” is not terribly dirty – we just need to dust it off so that it may work. We can start by allowing more moderate and conservative voices to speak on campus. We could use more moderate Republicans (like George H.W. Bush and Dwight Eisenhower, whose Vice President Nixon once visited Wesleyan) and conservative Democrats (like Joe Manchin), and everything in between. The first step: we need to talk more to each other, that we may interact and engage with each other. This would make better practice for the “real world” than what my class went through. If everyone gets pulled too far to the left or the right – like spindle fibers in mitosis – no real action will occur.
Mitosis poses an apt metaphor not only because I once had to explain to a scientifically-minded woman about political polarization this way. It is also a fine metaphor because the extremities on both ends of the spectrum polarize the intellectual centers of each party so that the parties become as divided as cells! No wonder Congress will not get anything done (nationally and within our campus).
The College Republicans, as a group at Wesleyan, may be in the early stages – their website is not yet complete, and neither are their campaigns. But I take Emmakristina Sveen ’17 at her word when she says that they want to establish cordial ties with groups like the Log Cabin Republicans, Connecticut Black Republicans and Conservatives, the National Federation of Republican Women, the National Coalition of Jewish Republicans, and even WesDems..Wesleyan would not – and should not – have it any other way.
