As colleges prepare for a new school year one of the first lessons taught will focus on sexual assualt education. Eastern Michigan University officials want the entire campus community to work together to prevent sexual violence.
Ellen Lassiter Collier thinks federal investigations into how universities handle sexual assault have broken the silence around the issue. Collier is Eastern Michigan University's Women's Resource Center Program Coordinator. She says all of Eastern's student orientation programs include bystander intervention and consent lessons.
Collier believes it's important to get information about sexual assault to students as early as possible. "A majority of sexual assaults that people do report experiencing while they're in college take place during the first six weeks of their first year on campus," she says.
Collier hopes the media attention including NPR's recent series on sexual assault will result in students being more aware of the issue when they first get to college.
EMU is also developing a comprehensive campaign to ensure everyone on campus knows the most up to date strategies to help stop sexual violence.
Like 89.1 WEMU on Facebook and follow us on Twitter— Andrew Cluley is the Ann Arbor beat reporter, and anchor for 89.1 WEMU News. Contact him at 734.487.3363 or email him acluley@emich.edu.
