As a woman in today’s society, there are, unfortunately, a lot of things to be afraid of, sexual assault being one of them. And although the issue of sexual assault is understood by practically all SCU students, the SCU administration appears to not understand the severity of this issue. Evidence of that is that they never talk about it with their students. Never.
I recently searched the term “sexual assault” in my email, and the only names that pop up are the Head of the Peer Health Educators and the SCU Violence Prevention Program. No members of the administration at this school have sent out an email on this issue during the past 18 months.
Now, I commend our President, Father Engh, on his emails following the presidential election and President Trump’s executive order regarding DACA. But, he has also chosen to communicate with students surrounding school events that, in my opinion, hold less importance than sexual assault (the retirement of a professor, reminder about the Mass of the Holy Spirit).
President Engh has an exclusive platform, one that holds incredible value; many students skim or delete many emails from our university's departments, but when you see an email from the President, you feel compelled to read it.
I think he should use this power to bring attention to issues on campus that have an effect on the well-being of this university’s students. Overall, I would like to see more transparency in terms of the frequency of sexual assault on campus from our school’s administration.
What I would like to see are monthly, or even quarterly reports letting us know about the statistics of sexual assault on campus, and the resources that are available. I do admit, I am still unclear where these statistics would come from (perhaps CAPS, or even the Office of Student Life). Maybe they could come from anonymous campus-wide surveys.
This transparency would be hugely beneficial for those who have been sexually assaulted. They need to know that they are not alone and that there are resources that have been effective for other students. What they don't need to feel is that they are the only one that this has happened to.
This information could also be beneficial in the way that it could shine a light on trends that lead to these assaults. It could spark conversations that would inspire changes in how our school operates to minimize the factors that contribute to the occurence sexual assault.
I also need to acknowledge my own shortcomings in this aspect. I am not in on meetings between our President and administrators; perhaps they talk about this often and there is something prohibiting them for talking openly with students about it.
But, then again, all I ask for is transparency.
