UPDATED: May 2, 2017 at 4:50 p.m.

A sea of blue and orange cups consumed a portion of Syracuse University’s quad, as a visual display indicating the number of current students who have or will experience sexual assault at SU before graduation: 2,977 cups — 2,977 students.

This display, organized through the Office of Health Promotions and “It’s On US” campaign at SU, sat on the quad for several days last week.

On the quad almost seven months earlier, a group of students stood silently with red tape over their mouths, behind bare mattresses with messages on them spelled out with the tape that said, “rapists go here” and “I can hear your silence.” After the Title IX investigation began, protesters demonstrated “to symbolize the pain and outrage of living in a university community that does not support sexual assault survivors,” they said in a statement.

Sexual assault and access to sexual assault resources on campus at SU has been a controversial topic for years.

The Chancellor’s Task Force on Sexual and Relationship Violence was created at the university three years ago after the controversial closing of the Advocacy Center and the reorganizing of sexual assault resources into the Counselling Center, the Office of Health Promotions and the Office of Student Assistance.

Though the decisions regarding the closing of the Advocacy Center and the restructuring of sexual assault resources were sudden and controversial, more students now are seeking help from campus resources when they are sexually assaulted or face relationship violence than they were when the AC was still open.

From 2013-14, 128 students sought help from the Advocacy Center and Counselling Center, and that number could technically be lower because there was some overlap between the two centers, said Cory Wallack, director of the Counseling Center and a staff member of the Sexual and Relationship Violence Response Team, in a 2015 interview with The Daily Orange. From 2014-15, 144 students sought in-person support from the response team at the Counselling Center, with an additional 38 students seeking support over the phone.

In 2015-16, more students reported to the response team, Wallack said. The numbers for that year will be released in a report by the university around May.

A majority of students seeking help are women, Wallack said. A significant number of students of color are also now coming forward for help, Wallack added, estimating they make up about 30 to 40 percent of SU students seeking assistance.

More than 90 percent of sexual assault victims on college campuses don’t report being assaulted, according to the National Sexual Violence Resource Center. If there’s a bigger number of reports, it doesn’t exactly mean that more assaults are happening on campus, Wallack said.

“What’s hard is that there’s obviously a lot of students out there that we don’t know, that aren’t coming forward for a whole host of reasons,” Wallack said in a recent interview. “The ones that are choosing to come forward I think is an outgrowth of a whole lot of education, a whole lot of efforts from folks across the system.”

The Title IX investigation into SU was opened by the Department of Education in May 2016 and is still pending. The investigation was first publicly reported by The Daily Orange in August, not by the administration. Prior to The Daily Orange’s report, the Chancellor’s Task Force on Sexual and Relationship Violence was not informed about the investigation.

When the co-chairs of the chancellor’s taskforce, Rebecca Reed Kantrowitz and Joanna O. Masingila, were asked why the taskforce was not informed about the Title IX investigation, despite the taskforce was created to be more transparent about sexual assault issues, Sarah Scalese, associate vice president for university communications said the co-chairs were not in a position to answer the question directly as members of the taskforce.

“What we can say though is that we have on the task force, we have legal counsel,” Kantrowitz said. “One of our attorneys is on the task force and so every task force meeting she now does an update for us, and that has been very helpful.”

Chancellor Kent Syverud in October said he wasn’t sure at the time about the public nature of the investigation and when he should have taken steps in notifying the task force.

“I think we would take that differently today if we could go back then,” Syverud said at the time. “I’m not sure that serious damage was done by that delay, but I think it’s important that it not be repeated.”

But it’s difficult to know if issues of transparency won’t be repeated again, said Tula Goenka, a member of the chancellor’s taskforce and television, radio and film associate professor. It’s also unknown whether the repeated communication issues from the administration is deliberate or if the lesson has just not been learned, Goenka added.

“It’s easier to say sorry than to get permission,” she said.

Goenka added that she’s still glad the taskforce exists, considering a lot of universities don’t have one. But she said that it could also be more forceful. She and other members of the taskforce said they felt energized after their final meeting this year, where the four students on the task force presented on what could be improved and how to take more concrete steps next year.

Amy Quichiz, a senior women’s and gender studies major and a student member of the task force, said she “felt betrayed,” in a way, for not being informed about the Title IX investigation.

“I’m literally working in the system and we still didn’t find out,” she said. But Quichiz added that she understands the reluctance to inform the campus.

Kantrowitz, the co-chair of the taskforce, said the group has been doing its best to listen carefully to students concerns. She added that she doesn’t see protests as a bad thing and thinks it adds some visibility and intensity to issues that are good for the campus.

Quichiz’s work with the administration didn’t stop her from protesting the Title IX investigation on the quad one day in early October of last year, and sitting in on a meeting with the task force the next day.

She still works with the administration, because she is motivated by the work and efforts of individuals in the task force, she said.

“They don’t take it in a negative light, they see it as a positive thing, as in ‘we want to hear what students have to say,’” Quichiz said. “I think that’s what keeps me going.”

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Graphics by Andy Mendes | Digital Designer

CLARIFICATION: In a previous version of this post, the extent to which the co-chairs of the chancellor’s taskforce, Rebecca Reed Kantrowitz and Joanna O. Masingila, responded to a question about the Title IX investigation was unclear.

 

Published on May 1, 2017 at 7:37 pm

Contact Anna: almerod@syr.edu