A recently-released survey about sexual safety on campus has called attention to one of the most prevalent, yet most underreported, crimes affecting university students, just in time for the new academic year.

The survey, titled “2012 DePaul Sexual Safety Survey” was not created by Public Safety, but its creators–a coalition of DePaul graduate students, former Office of Sexual Health and Violence Prevention director Molly Harris, and Public Service assistant professor Dr. Christopher Einolf–hope its results will help foster more discussion and education about the issue.

The findings, while perhaps not surprising given the national statistics, are worth every student knowing.

The survey, which was targeted toward women, found that the number of students who reported what the report calls “unwanted sex play–defined as fondling, petting or kissing” was high.

Twenty-seven percent of respondents indicated that they had experienced unwanted sexual contact through either physical force, drugs and/or alcohol, intimidation by someone in a position of authority, or “psychological coercion”–which the survey defined as a survivor giving in to “unwanted sex play or sexual intercourse because they were overwhelmed by the perpetrator’s continual arguments and pressure to engage in such acts.”

Twelve percent of respondents indicated that they were victims of this on more than one occasion.

By contrast, the survey found that students were clearly not comfortable with reporting attacks to anyone: 43.8 percent of survivors of attempted rape said they never reported it, and 73.5 percent of survivors of completed rape never reported it to anyone.

It is worth noting that the sample size of the survey was relatively small–of more than 900 surveys that were handed out, only 208 were returned completed.

“The response rate was much lower than we thought (it would be),” said Einolf, who acted as a technical adviser, helping administer the survey and making sure the data collected was scientifically sound. He felt that, while the data was consistent with other studies conducted in the U.S. on campus sexual assault, the information could benefit from another survey with more respondents.

“Ideally what you want to do is send a survey out to the entire student body… and then we’d be working with a census instead of a sample,” he said. “It would be nice to do it again and find a way to distribute it more widely…to get a better estimate.”

Sarah Colome, who was a graduate assistant involved in almost every step of the survey process, said that part of the decision to survey only women was to get as large a sample as possible with a single group.

“We wanted to get as large a sample as possible…a solid sample for a targeted survey, and then move on to other targeted surveys (for men, LGBTQ students, etc),” Colome said.

Colome, who recently graduated with her Masters of Science in Public Service Management, said that the goal of the survey was to bring quantifiable data to the table when advocating for greater programming on campus to address sexual violence, something many feel is still insufficient at DePaul.

“There have been some steps…and that is great,” Colome said, referring to the full-time opening of the Office of Sexual Health and Violence Prevention in February 2012. “But these are initial steps, they can’t be the only steps…I don’t know if other (Chicago) universities have done similar studies…but they have much more programming (already in place).”

DePaul’s institutional response to sexual violence has come up before.

The Office of Sexual Health and Violence Prevention, for example, was created as a part-time office in 2007, after the student group R.I.S.E. (Resources, Information, Services, Empowerment) staged a demonstration to express their concern over what they saw as a lack of response and resources for victims of sexual violence from DePaul.

Now, though it is a full-time office, an improvement which Colome believes was necessary, it is only staffed by one person–not enough for a large university.

“If the national average is one in four women experiencing sexual violence during college…that’s a lot more than one person can handle,” she said.

Additionally the university has been working over the summer to be more proactive about addressing sexual assault.

Art Munin, the Dean of Students, said that steps had been implemented to increase the university’s ability to respond to cases of sexual violence, as well as to empower students to prevent them in the first place.

Those steps included training the staff at the Dean of Students Office, as well as members of Campus Recreation and Public Safety, in a crisis response certification program offered by the YWCA.

DePaul is also trying to step up its student awareness: for the first time, DePaul implemented a dedicated workshop about sexual safety during opening week for incoming freshman.

“(The workshop) was very successful,” Munin said. “A lot of great conversation…and information shared.”

Munin said the university is also implementing “Bystander Intervention” training, in hopes that it will give students the tools necessary to take action if they witness violence against one of their peers.

“It’s an all too sad reality…that there are many instances where there were other people around who see something wrong going on, but don’t feel empowered to step forward and say “Hey, this isn’t good,” Munin said. “Bystander Intervention is specifically to train students to intervene.”

Bob Wachowski, director of Public Safety, agrees that a student educating themselves is an important factor in staying safe this academic year.

“Take advantage of the educational programs offered by the Office of Student Affairs,” Wachowski said. “There are a lot of great programs out there…I would encourage (students) to take part in that.”

Wachowski, who declined to comment on the report because it did not come from Public Safety data or information, added that the quarterly CAPS meetings held on campus were a great tool for students who wanted to be more aware of incidents on their campus and in the area.

“That’s their chance to ask questions,” he said, adding that the CAPS meetings were attended by representatives of the Chicago Police Department as well as Public Safety.

“We talk about the criminal activity on campus and in the area…It’s a good forum for them to be aware of what’s happening. It’s all about awareness.”

Distribution of the report has been slow as the university descends into first week madness, but Colome hopes that as more students and faculty see it, a stronger, more forthright dialogue about preventing sexual assault on campus can be had.

“I hope the report gets out and is utilized,” Colome said. “The steps (taken by DePaul) are a good start, but there needs to be more and it needs to happen faster.”

The next CAPS meeting is Thursday, Oct. 18, at 4 p.m., in the Student Center Atrium (1st floor) at the Lincoln Park Campus. Students are encouraged to attend.
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