About the Campus Violence Prevention Project
Educational Philosophy
The mission of the education component of the project is to provide education and resources that shift the campus culture toward a community free of violence.
In order to achieve these changes, we are interacting with students in many different ways. Our goals are to increase students' knowledge of how the issues of violence against women are present in their daily lives to enhance the students' abilities to recognize violence and attitudes that may increase violence, to speak out about resisting pressures that lead to violence, and to effectively support peers who have experienced violence.
We are using studies of the effectiveness of sexual assault programming to guide us in providing education to students that we hope will have long-term effects on their attitudes and beliefs. Since education over longer time periods appears to be more effective in changing attitudes, we have developed opportunities for students to discuss relevant issues in small groups over periods of a semester or a year. We try to present the issues of violence against women to the students in innovative ways through creating posters and postcards that contain specific messages that will resonate with particular communities. We are supporting student and staff leadership to provide strong role models to encourage students to experiment with new behaviors, such as speaking up against harassment and other everyday intrusions.
Much of the longer term work that we have organized is working within sub-communities of the student population to help students in these sub-groups to analyze the community standards that they participate in creating and upholding. The sub-communities that we have worked with so far include: athletes; fraternities and sororities; first-year women; Africana; Asian and Asian American; Latino; lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans; international students; and arts community.
We have a special focus on working with men. Our initiatives work to build awareness and leadership among men involved in student men's groups, such as the Black Men's Group, the Latino Men's Group, and the Tufts Men's Activist Coalition. We are helping them to identify their role in a culture in which most men are not perpetrators but most violence against women is perpetrated by men. When the intersections of race, culture, class, and sexual orientation are added, the discussions are at a very complex level.
We are involved in a process of working collaboratively with the educational agenda of the Alcohol and Drug Education program on campus. Many of the presentations are planned jointly. We are very clear in doing this work that using alcohol and other drugs is not a cause of or excuse for violence. We believe that there is a large overlap in the attitudes, beliefs, and skills that will help our students resist violent behavior and those that will help them to understand the responsible use of alcohol and drugs.
The techniques that we are currently using and some examples of each:
— passive programming to make sure that information about issues of violence against women appear regularly in students' daily lives in different formats.
- displaying posters in the residence halls and other campus buildings,
- tabling with brochures and postcards advertising websites
- posting flyers advertising the student hotline
- distributing brochures about responding to incidents of violence
- promoting viewings of our 30-second video spots,
- including information specific to sexual assault in every room in the residence halls
— one-time campus programs that provide information or special perspectives. This information might be reaching some audience members for the first time and others might be gathering more information on a specific topic.
- Mandatory orientation program for all incoming students
- Speakers and films
- Coffeehouse involving performers and artists
— peer-led programs organized by student organizations. These programs demonstrate student interest in addressing the issues of violence with a broad audience of students. Staff members may provide guidance in planning the events which builds student leadership and supports the students' understanding of the issues.
- Take Back the Night March
- Vagina Monologue production
- Sex Fair of tables sponsored by student groups and campus offices
- Vulvapalooza, a fair before the Vagina Monologue productions
- Altar space
- Forums and panel discussions
— Short-term training provided by staff members to organized student groups on campus. We discuss the how the issues of violence against women might come up for the students in their role on campus.
- Orientation Leaders
- Resident Assistants
- Orientation program (In the SACK) facilitators
- Peer leaders in programs provided by other offices on campus.
— Discussions with staff members invited by students in organized small groups: Black Men's Group, Black Women's Collective, Latina Ladies, Latino Men's Group, Jewish Women's Collective and others.
— Longer-term work
- Semester-long class
- This is based on the training required in Massachusetts to become state-certified rape crisis counselors. This is a for-credit class offered by a clinician from an off-campus provider.
- Year or semester-long small group media teams
- The project staff work with students in teams of 4-8 student members to design posters, video projects, and other media for use on campus. (See video and poster development.)
We are hoping to provide entry points for students to learn more about violence against women from whatever point they are starting. Some of the information is provided to provide general awareness and some programs are designed to help the students look at their attitudes and beliefs at a deep level. Our goal is to increase the ability of students to be leaders in changing the campus climate.