AU has initiated a peer educators program and changed the informational stickers on the back of bathroom stall doors in an effort to further inform students about sexual assault.
The peer educators program allows students to volunteer and educate the AU community about sexual assault. These students primarily hold informational workshops.
Workshops can be requested by campus organizations, fraternities, sororities or resident assistants, said Daniel Rappaport, the University’s sexual assault prevention coordinator.
Over the course of two weekends, each educator went through 20 hours of training on dating violence, sexual violence and stalking.
The students also meet once a week to review their experiences and go over minor additional training.
The first of the workshops led by the educators was held on Oct. 20, according to Rappaport.
While these peer educators can help sexual assault survivors clarify their experiences, they are required to point the survivors to campus resources for further professional assistance, Rappaport said.
Lauren Croll, a sophomore in the College of Arts and Sciences, is one of the peer educators. Her most important role is facilitating communication about sexual assault and related issues, she said.
“There’s so much victim blaming and shame in our society, there’s not a forum and a place for people to talk and to learn,” Croll said.
Sexual assault bathroom stickers
The new sexual assault stall stickers, which were installed during the first week of October, are designed to not only point students to resources, but to also help them understand that sexual assault isn’t always easily identifiable, Rappaport said.
Previous stickers began, “If you have been sexually assault.”
The new stickers say, “If you have had an unwanted sexual experience or are a survivor of sexual assault.”
“We wanted them to be more accessible in the sense that more people would be able to read them and relate to the sticker,” Rappaport said.
The new version of the sticker also places more emphasis on the formatting of the sexual assault resource information and addresses the needs of people who know they have been assaulted, as well as people who are less sure about their experience, according to Rappaport.
Carmen Rios, the director of Women’s Initiative, was pleased to hear about the changes, saying they were initiated based on student feedback about this issue.
“I’m happy about the new initiatives, which are survivor-focused and show a lot of support on the part of AU’s administration for their students,” Rios wrote in an email. “This is a great start to the year, in which I hope the university can accomplish many changes for survivors and prevention of sexual assault.”
