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Sex
Assault Educator Appointed
by Ariella Cohen
This week, Dean of Student Life Peter Goldsmith appointed
Oberlins Health Promotion Coordinator, Lori Morgan Flood as
the Colleges Sexual Assault Education Coordinator. The move
follows a recommendation that came out of first meeting of the Presidents
Task Force on Sexual Education and Ethics and was also prompted by
campus sexual assault activists who, for several years, have called
for the College to create a staff position wholly concerned with educating
on sexual assault and its related issues.
I hope that this is a response to student concerns, sophomore
Rebecca DeCola, one of two student members of the Presidents
Task Force said. Whether or not there was programming, no one
went. Sex at 7:30 wasnt a relevant answer. I think
that there is someone who has been educated on how to educate on sexual
assault and what makes for unwarranted sexual contact is tremendous
progress. I hope this leads to more structural change such as an office,
a college-run hot-line; clearly its leading to more public dialogue.
Since the 1993 inception of the College sexual offense policy, all
education on the topic had fallen under the assigned duties of policy
founder and Administrator Camille Hamlin-Mitchell. Over the years
Hamlin-Mitchell had coordinated several educational programs, including
first-year orientation workshops and training sessions for the members
of the Formal Hearing Board (the hearing panel that adjudicates sexual
assault cases). Oberlins Sexual Assault Support Team facilitated
many additional educational events on campus, including an ExCo on
sexual assault and an annual Rape Awareness Month with a full calendar
of workshops, lectures, films and various other projects. However,
many students felt that a more comprehensive and effective educational
programming required the resources and energy that another, additional
staff member would offer.
My understanding was that SAST was the group that did peer education
and what I heard from members of SAST was that they couldnt
do it alone, they were asking for a better integrated sexual education,
sexual assault education program. I came here not to do it all, but
be part of the process, Flood said.
With the new division of labor, Hamlin-Mitchell will remain responsible
for administering the policy, including continuing to chair the Sexual
Offense Review Committee and educating on the policy itself, while
Flood will coordinate educational programming on the broader issues
of assault, consent, human sexuality and sexual responsibility.
I am going to work very hard in the next several weeks to put
together workshops for the campus community for the semester.... Finding
programming is what I do and I can do it fast. Though I would have
rather had six months to coordinate programming, there are people
on this campus who have been doing this work and will be valuable
resources, Flood said.
In part, this shift in responsibilities came out of the first meeting
of the Presidents Task Force on Education and Sexual Ethics.
It came up in the task force meeting that Flood had this background
and experience in rape crisis education and it seemed that was a resource
members of the administration had been unaware of until that moment.
Really positively, they took action on it and now have her in this
new coordinator position, De Cola said.
At the close of last semester President Dye announced the formation
of this task force, inviting new voices into the sexual assault dialogue,
including two students new to sexual assault dialogue, faculty members
and Flood. The events of last fall brought to home to many of
us that we needed to undertake education of a broader nature involving
sexuality and sexual assault
It was understood that no one person
can undertake education of students across every facet of these issues,
Dean of Student Life Peter Goldsmith said.
Coming on the heels of two widely publicized sexual assault cases,
their respective adjudication and then, months of heated campus discourse
on sexual assault and proper institutional responses, Dye established
the task force with a goal of creating a curriculum centered on sexual
behavior, sexual decision-making and consent.
We have been too focused on policy and putting demands on policy
that no policy can meet. Our Task Force is putting emphasis on prevention.
Policy cannot prevent sexual assault, Nancy Dye said.
Some students are critical of the task forces linkage between
ethics and sexual assault: [the Task Force on] Sexual Education
and Ethics supports a culture...where the rapist just made a
bad ethical decision, sophomore and SAST member Myrl Beam
said.
Fall semester ended with the two students that had been tried for
sexual assault reinstated as students, and a Speak-Out at Cox during
which several rape survivors came forward and spoke about the lack
of institutional support given by the College at the time of their
rape. Hamlin-Mitchells Task Force on Sexual Assault had met
three times, SORC had met twice and the previous years Sexual
Offense Review Committees policy change recommendations had
been sitting on the Colleges lawyers desk for months.
The College is having an official response now, after SAST tried
to raise awareness of the issues, said Beam. We have been
routed out of that formal response. The SAST members who were on SORC
worked long and hard on those changes to the policy, they defined
consent, set a clear time-line, made the policy more enforceable and
one that students would understand. That review process was supposed
to happen rapidly: it hasnt happened. President Dye says it
is with the lawyers, Camille Hamlin-Mitchell says it has been with
Dye. Wherever its been it hasnt been with students, she
said.
Unlike Hamlin-Mitchell, who came to Oberlin as an Administrator of
Equity Concerns, Flood holds a Masters degree in health education
and has been trained specifically to educate on issues of human sexuality.
Before coming to the Wellness Center in 1998, she both designed and
implemented school and community projects on contraceptive use, HIV
awareness and overall wellness. Flood began her work in this area
17 years ago with the Rape Education and Prevention Program at Central
Ohio Womans Clinic. At Oberlin, however, Flood runs the Wellness
Center, a campus resource she has expanded. This semester the Center
will offer 11 classes, two free, confidential and anonymous HIV testing
programs, a student intern program and full health and wellness library.
In addition to her work at the center, this semester Flood also teaches
a class in wellness through the department of Athletics.
While the appointment of Flood appears as long-awaited progress to
both students and administrators, some members of the community remain
unsure of what is to happen next. Now, finally, that this appointment
is in place, I want to know what the administration saw as the problems
leading to the decision and what categories do they plan to use to
find what constitutes a good job as sexual assault education coordinator,
senior and SAST member Benjamin Joffe-Walt said. |
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