Maggie Hannon |
President Barack Obama plans to announce “It’s On Us” Friday, a campaign to encourage everyone on college campuses to prevent sexual assault, with an emphasis on recruiting male students to join the fight.
The Green Dot program, which has been at UP for two years, has a similar aim. The organization teaches bystander intervention for the prevention of sexual assault and other forms of power-based violence.
Senior Derek Boggs, a senior soccer player, underwent Green Dot training with most of his team. He said the soccer teams are big advocates for the program.
One of the main things he learned at the training, Boggs said, was when to step in on a situation.
“You see it all the time, and it’s something that before the training I could have seen as harmless,” Boggs said. “But now that I’ve talked about the scenarios and I’ve developed more of an awareness of what the red dots look like I can help out and outnumber the red with some green.”
Green Dot was commemorated at the men’s and women’s soccer games Sept. 12, where the players wore Green Dot warm-ups before the game.
Green Dot’s involvement in the fight against sexual assault at UP comes as universities and organizations nationwide try to come up with solutions.
For over a year, the federal government has been investigating over 70 universities nationwide. Recently, the California Legislature passed a “Yes Means Yes” standard for all colleges that receive state funding. This standard requires colleges to follow an affirmative consent guideline, meaning that there must be affirmative, conscious and voluntary agreement from both parties before engaging in sexual activity.
Green Dot held a training for students on Sept. 13. The training includes four aspects for students to learn in order to change their perspective of power-based violence, which includes sexual violence, relationship violence, stalking, harassment and other uses of force, threat or intimidation of an individual.
Training teaches students to understand the responsibility and power of bystanders. The trainees also discuss when they should or shouldn’t intervene. Students who go through Green Dot training learn that there may be things that interfere with intervention, and what they can do if they are unable to act.
Green Dot coordinator Kristina Houck, who is also UP’s wellness education and prevention program coordinator, said these types of programs change how people view sexual assault.
“Green Dot is about each of us figuring out, ‘How do I live a life in my everyday that says I’m committed to this and that we intervene if we see things happening?’” Houck said. “But more importantly, everyday we acknowledge that it’s not okay and we won’t stand for it.”
After going through training, Boggs and Junior Brook Stark said they have more confidence in stepping up and being proactive in problematic situations.
Stark said the training made her realize she has the power to change situations she sees unfolding.
“I think that’s a pretty cool thing, because before you think you’re just a regular college student and you have no right to be intruding in someone’s life,” Stark said. “But once you go through the training, you realize how much of an impact you can have, and usually people are pretty grateful.”
From her training, Stark learned about the “Three D’s”: distract, direct and delegate. Stark said after the training, she used the Three D’s to help a friend that was in an emotionally abusive relationship.
Stark said distracting is her favorite of the Three D’s because she has the confidence to jump into a situation if she thinks something may be wrong. Stark said Houck supported her in trying to help her friend. “Ultimately I think that it’s great that there’s increased conversation about the issue,” Houck said. “It just underscores that it’s really up to each of us to do something [and] that all of us have a role in making sure each of us don’t get hurt.”
Maggie Hannon is a reporter for The Beacon. She can be reached at hannon15@up.edu.
