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Student Association renewed its support for Callisto – a third-party, non-profit and survivor-founded organization – through a bill passed in March to promote the private off-campus resource for survivors of sexual assault on Syracuse University’s campus.

“(SA support) makes a huge difference in students being able to use those resources and understand them,” said Carla Guariglia, Callisto’s SU Campus Ambassador and SA’s Director of Mental Health Advocacy.

Callisto provides users the opportunity to privately fill out a detailed, time-stamped recollection of a sexual assault through a data encrypted form. The app uses an anonymous matching system to find repeat offenders from other users’ reports in the Callisto Vault system, Guariglia explained. Through the bill, and support from Vice President-Elect Yasmin Nayrouz, Callisto has continued to expand its relationships with student organizations on campus.

“These tools are critical because they allow survivors to learn about their options in a way that does not require a survivor to out themselves publicly and/or limits them to the Title IX process,” Sarayfah Bolling, Callisto’s director of programs and strategic engagement, told The Daily Orange in an email statement.

SU alumna Justine Hastings started a chapter of the national Callisto organization on campus in 2020 and received support for the resource through an SA bill.

“The Student Association unequivocally stands with survivors of sexual assault and we are committed to supporting and advocating for them,” Hastings said in September 2020.

Guariglia suggested renewing Callisto’s collaboration with SA, which she said was met with strong support. Through the bill, SA hopes to increase awareness of the resource as an alternative to a formal reporting process.

“It’s not available at every campus across the nation at the moment, so I think it’s important for students to know that we have it available, even if they’re not interested in using it just so that they know that it’s there if they want it,” said Guariglia, whose organization is now called Be With Survivors SU.

Nayrouz wrote in a statement to The D.O. that SA members hope to continue promoting Callisto for students while also learning how to better support sexual assault survivors on campus.

“It’s important that Student Association supports tools like Callisto, so survivors have several resources that they know about to give them more choice in choosing a resource that fits with their needs best,” Nayrouz wrote.

Guariglia said she feels lucky to have avenues for open communication about Callisto with various campus organizations and university administrators because of her on-campus positions. She’s also part of the Chancellor’s Task Force of Sexual and Relationship Violence, which allows her to collaborate with university leaders, the Barnes Center at The Arch and Vera House.

But Guariglia said Callisto has struggled to receive sufficient administrative support from SU and the Barnes Center despite the significant amount of student support on campus. She said that the lack of support from administration does not threaten its presence on campus, but Callisto would benefit from further support and promotion.

She added that the university is open to revisiting Callisto’s presence on SU’s campus.

The Barnes Center’s Health Promotion team told The D.O. in an email that it will not be making a comment on Callisto at this time.

SU currently offers Vera House – an organization in the city of Syracuse that provides support, crisis intervention and victim advocacy – as its only off-campus resource for survivors of sexual and relationship violence. In August 2022, CNYCentral published an investigation into Vera House’s hiring of Marcus Jackson, a registered level 2 sex offender who worked as a “victim advocate” in the organization from 2020 to 2022.

Despite the organization’s employment of a sex offender, SU issued various requests that Vera House complete in order to maintain its relationship with Vera House in December 2o22.

Guariglia said Callisto is similar to the Vera House in that it is a third-party organization that can remove the victim from the place where the trauma has occurred.

“Callisto offers survivors tools, resources, and services that allow them to maintain full autonomy and agency over what happens next, if anything, and that is empowering for survivors as they get to chart their own path toward healing and justice,” Bolling wrote.

Guariglia, who is graduating in May, said she hopes the next Callisto campus representative will work to build administrative support for the organization. She said she’s also working to continue the relationship between Callisto and BWSSU, as well as expand collaborations to other student organizations.

The Callisto chapter is currently accepting applications for the campus ambassador position.

“Having done work with survivors the year before I started working with Callisto and continuing doing work with survivors now, I still am very confident in sharing it as a resource and very comfortable promoting it to other students as a survivor myself,” Guariglia said.

Published on April 27, 2023 at 1:25 am

Contact Kendall: kaluther@syr.edu