Ta Ta for now by blogger Jade

Due to my acceptance to the Women’s Health Doctor of Practitioner Program at the University of Minnesota, I have decided to step aside as blogger for the Leila Grace Foundation.  I thoroughly enjoyed my time blogging for this foundation, they do great work!  A year ago when I began blogging, I had no idea what was in store for me.   The knowledge I have gained through the foundation, and fellow bloggers is invaluable. 

I am sad to say goodbye, but am thankful for the experience.  Know that by reading the blogs from the foundation you are gaining knowledge and an awareness for rape culture on campus and worldwide.  Someone once told me “the more you know, the more you know,” a valid statement.  You are making a difference.

HOW CAN CURRENT PREVENTION PROGRAMS IMPROVE THEIR CONTENT BY OFFERING IT THROUGH A DIGITAL PLATFORM AND INCORPORATING SOCIAL MEDIA? by Blogger Robert

In the age of the internet education is shifting towards a new platform. A platform that works with the interests of a new generation of students. More and more lessons and learning activities have become computer interactive procedures. All in the name of progress.



Aside from the new futuristic world around us there are still age old conundrums that still require answers. How do we prevent bullying in the school system? How do we prevent children from being ridiculed for expressing who they are? But most importantly how do we maintain the realm of public education d s safe and secure place.



The answer is not by any means a simple one but once again the 21st century has opened up new doors and possibilities that are yet to be explored. In this new golden era its time to turn classroom learning into a video game. Lets take bully prevention as our prime target for the moment. If there were classes dedicated to computer gaming activities in which the students were made to use teamwork as a method of achieving success in the game it would be a lesson that would stick with the children even after they'd gone home.



Part of the storyline of the game would be that your helping kids your age who are in some sort of trouble or danger. This sets a precedent that if someone needs help then its your job to provide it to them.



Often times seminars and assemblies do not work. Its too IN YOUR FACE! The message has to be instilled into every student naturally. Its not something that can be crammed down their throats. If its executed that way the children see it as any other forbidden fruit placed in front of them. Don't smoke. Don't drink. Don't do drugs. Don't say anything to anybody that the administration would not approve of.



That's why students usually choose the peers that appear more timid to exert their frustrations onto. They know those students aren't going to report them. They know this kid isn't going to get them into trouble. And they know this student wasn't going to fight back. So by collecting all of them into a giant auditorium or getting some authoritarian police officer-like figure to talk to them about being respectful to their fellow students, your only putting a more tantalizing piece of fruit in front of them.



There are some students who feel the need to express their own depression or anger by targeting students who show apparent signs of insecurities and anxieties. But if at an early age they learned that working alongside those same students is fun and rewarding you may end up with a very different positive outcome.



You may be skeptical as too whether these digital based lessons may work but the proof is in the pudding. Its been statistically proven that children s well as adults learn at a more rapid rate with digital stimulation. To use a study in year 2000 stating that the company United Airlines reduced its employee training time from 40 hours to 18 hours after converting to a digital learning format. Looking for something even more recent? In 2012 the Center for Learning and Performance Technologies released the following Top 100 tools for learning. The top 10 were all media based platforms. Among them being Wikipedia, PowerPoint and WordPress.



Technology can revolutionize education. Because the internet is more then just a platform in which to pirate your music. And technology is a far greater tool then we give it credit for. Yes, yes. I know we have cell


phones and laptops and a million little gadgets on our utility belt but there are institutional foundations that sill haven't utilized technology for all its potential. Why not utilize technology to save trees instead of printing more literary text books? The same can be said about the wasteful tax payer spending used to purchase erasers, pencils, paper and binders. If everything was done over a digital platform it would all become obsolete. And if all students were presented with the same computers, same desks and all the same utilities this too would prevent students from finding ways to take superiority over one another.



Digital platforms can change the education system in so many impactful ways but we just haven't discovered all the ways in which we can use this new found power. But as educational gaming apps like Lumosity and Elevate start to become more popular amongst teachers, the implementation of these new found methods in the classroom will change public education forever.

Increasing Participation in Sexual Assault Prevention Programs by Blogger Abigail

I am lucky to attend a University that has a program in place called GreenDot, which trains individuals on a voluntary basis to become what they call “active bystanders”. An active bystander is a person sees a bad situation from happening, and does whatever they can to make sure the situation is avoided. Some techniques include confronting the situation or creating a distraction. In the cases of sexual assault, an active bystander can play an important third party role to help the victim get out of the situation. The catchphrase for GreenDot is “Billikens Look Out For Each Other”. While the university has struggled to require students to complete the day-long training, incentives through student organizations have encouraged many to go. Generally, the biggest problem the program seems to face is that students generally don’t want to spend an entire day engaged in the training. If educational videos were available to students online, perhaps still with an incentive from an outside club or class, students could complete the GreenDot training on their own time. By giving the freedom to stop and go as you choose, perhaps with answering questions along the way, students will be more likely to make time to complete the program.

Fuerza en Números, Curación en Soledad por el blogger Emily

Estas palabras están en el Internet, que significa, según internetlivestats.com, 3,046,750,291 personas las pueden leer. Este número me da mucho miedo, pero siento sano y salvo en mi dormitorio, escondida detrás de mi computadora. Es muy diferente cara a cara. No podía expresar mis ideas ni mis experiencias que tienen que ver con la violencia sexual en frente de casi tres mil millones de personas. Yo sé, que fuerza en números es muy importante en la lucha contra la violencia sexual, pero creo que conversaciones cara a cara llevan consuelo también. “Take Back the Night” y otros mítines públicos pueden amplificar el conocimiento del problema de la violencia sexual en las universidades. Muchas veces estos eventos son la empieza de la curación de una víctima y también muestran algo muy importante: que las víctimas no están solas. Creo que las universidades y organizaciones lo deben tener este hecho en cuenta.

La violencia sexual es la experiencia más personal y traumática en la vida de una víctima. En mi opinión, es un sujeto muy difícil discutir en un grupo largo quizás en la plaza de una universidad. Por ejemplo, nomore.org hace campaña llamada “Sin palabras” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9ZvxYcPJk8). Los videos de esta campaña muestran estrellas encontrando dificultad cuando quieren compartir sus experiencias de la violencia sexual. Me encanta esta campaña porque demuestra un lado del problema de la violencia sexual que no es tan sexy. Somos acostumbrados a campañas que son activos—Take Back the Night es un idea activo—pero no habemos visto como cada víctima de la violencia sexual vive con sus experiencias después de los mítines, cuando está en su cama, en su soledad.

Quiero ver a una campaña similar en las universidades que dice que las víctimas no necesitan saber las palabras correctas y que sugiere que las victimas reunirse con un terapeuta en su escuela. Esta campaña puede estar en la forma de notas en mesas, paneles en los baños o información en los sitios Web de las universidades. No es un mitin, pero una oportunidad de discutir sus experiencias y sentamientos en un ambiente sano y salvo. Es la empieza del proceso de curación. Creo que es increíble cuando una víctima tiene la base firma de como vivir con sus experiencias con la violencia sexual porque desde este punto pueden ayudar y apoyar a otras víctimas también.

Strength in numbers, healing in solitude by blogger Emily

These words are posted online, which means, according to internetlivestats.com, 3,046,750,291 people can access them. That’s alarming, but I feel safe sharing them behind my computer, in my room. It would be a completely different story in person. I feel uncomfortable talking to a small group of people about sexual assault. I’d never be able to articulate my ideas and experiences in front of nearly three billion people. I know in regard to sexual assault, solidarity in numbers matters, but sometimes more solace can be found in one-on-one interaction. Take Back the Night and large scale university rallies are effective in spreading awareness about the prevalence of sexual assault on college campuses. They often serve as the spark that ignites a victim’s road to healing and empowerment and they also alert victims to a very important fact: they are not alone. However, I’ve found that some people first need to heal from sexual violence alone. I think campus administration and organizations should take this into account.




Sexual violence is the most personally damaging and violating experience. For me, it’s hard to chant about in a plaza full of people, even if they all have had similar experiences. Take the nomore.org “Speechless” campaign, for example (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9ZvxYcPJk8). This campaign showcases celebrities struggling to formulate words about their experiences with sexual assault. I love this campaign because it reveals a different side of the sexual violence issue, a side that is not as sexy. We’re used to seeing campaigns that are active—taking back the night is an empowering deed—but we have yet to see one about how each individual copes with his or her sexually violent experience after the rally, when the nuances of the experience echo in their heads at night.




I’d like to see a similar campaign on college campuses that lets victims know that it’s okay to not know what to say and directs them to a one-on-one counselor for help with the healing process, even if the road to healing commences with simply crying in a room. This campaign could come in the form of slips of paper scattered around campus, posters in bathrooms or links to campus counseling on university websites. It’s not a “rah! rah!” rally but instead an opportunity to try to find some way to release and cope with traumatizing sexual experiences. It forms the base of the healing process. I think that it is awesome when victims feel confident in their own coping and communicating abilities before reaching out to provide others with support.

Prevention Through A Digital Platform by Benedictine University blogger Karly Sacco

We have been living in a world that has been taken over by the power of social media for some years now. People feel more comfortable with opening up on websites and blogs because we are hidden behind a computer screen and can be anyone we want to be. Digital platforms have become a great way for those who are afraid to speak up in person to express their feelings and stories. Social medias are taking over the way we communicate and there isn’t any way around it so we might as well start incorporating it in most things that we do. Expression via Internet should always be an opinion for those to have when going through a difficult time.

Current sexual assault prevention programs should improve their content by offering more digital platforms for their members to speak through along with in person conversations.

There are a countless numbers of social media sites that can be a part of a program to help make it easier for people to communicate.

For example, Twitter. A prevention program can tweet out encouraging statements to get people struggling through their day with a little motivation. They can tweet out a Q&A so fellow members of the program can chat on a public platform and can relate to each other’s problems without being face to face. I am not saying that this is a perfect idea, but for those that are suffering, anything is worth a try to help them even in the smallest way. A lot of people say that social media is taking away from face to face interactions and being personable with one another. To that I say, what about Skype? This program would help immensely with prevention programs. The members of a program can all get together and have a Skype session with people across the world to discuss stories, prevention ideas, and just relate to each other.

Like I said before, the world is turning into a digital one, and  just by adding a few social media sites can positively change prevention programs by connecting people all over the world.

Are Colleges Capable of Handling Sexual Assaults? by blogger Ryan Flynn

As more news comes in about how the University of Virginia is handling new sexual assault allegations, the question should be presented: are colleges capable of handling sexual assaults?

This past fall I became a senior student representative on the Title IX Task Force at my college, and for the most part we have focused on how to spread sexual assault awareness utilizing the It’s On Us campaign. With that being said, on more than one occasion I have wondered myself whether a committee of college faculty, students, and administrators are capable of taking care of a sexual assault if one were to occur.

Before delving into the topic I should say that from all accounts, the college I attend has been very good at helping any victims of sexual assault reach the proper avenues and help, as well as helping them feel safe on the college campus from then on. However, like the University of Virginia has proved, many colleges cannot say the same. Many colleges would rather sweep sexual assaults under the rug, which unfortunately right now they have the power to do so.

At many big institutions, schools hold rape trials to determine innocence or guilt of those accused. According to the New York Times columnist Jed Rubenfeld’s November 15, 2014 article, “Mishandling Rape”, “mistaken findings of guilt are a real possibility because the federal government is forcing schools to use a lower evidentiary standard—the ‘more likely than not’ standard, which is much less exacting than criminal law’s ‘proof beyond a reasonable doubt’ requirement—at their rape trails.” Many professionals agree that this is not fair, as 28 Harvard law professors just recently condemned their university’s new sexual assault procedures for lacking fairness and due process and for having an overwhelming bias against the accused.

Even once the trials find an accused guilty, the punishments tend to be just a slap on the wrist, such as sensitivity training or suspension. Even expulsion is a slap on the wrist compared to what an actual court could do. With colleges currently having no incentive to report sexual assaults to law enforcement without the victim reporting it themselves, the best that colleges can do is deal with the assaults internally leading to the problems stated above.

This is why the federal government put out the new It’s On Us campaign to focus on intervention rather than dealing with the results of a sexual assault. It is much easier to prevent than resolve.

However, It’s On Us is only one step in the battle to end sexual assault on college campuses. If we want to get serious about sexual assaults, then it is time to treat them as what they are: a crime that deserves a harsh adult punishment, not a slap on the wrist.