Campus effort aims to prevent sexual harassment

Looking to end all sexual harassment on the GCSU campus, the Office of Institutional Equity and Diversity has teamed up with the Women’s Resource Center to campaign for awareness against the problem. Students have numerous resources to stop sexual harassment, yet many do not realize the options available to them.

“Our job as an office is to create a sexual harassment free environment,” said Yves-Rose SaintDic, the Director of Institutional Equality and Diversity. “I believe our policy we enforce is the best.

SaintDic refers to the rules regarding sexual harassment and the Sexual Harassment Resource Team, a specially trained group of faculty and staff at GCSU who are a safe ground for students to voice any issues with sexual harassment, abuse or inappropriate behavior.

For the fall semester there are 12 designated faculty composing the Sexual Harassment Resource Team. The faculty personnel discern whether or not the voiced dilemma classifies under all of the three requirements for sexual harassment before assuming it does.

The first requirement for sexual harassment is whether an action was based on submission to a sexual request that could directly affect an individual’s employment or academic standing. Secondly, the response to this request is used to affect students with their grading and employment. Lastly, sexual harassment is interfering with “an individuals work or academic performance.”

Sexual harassment can include “unwelcome sexual advances,” requests or demands for “sexual favors,” and other behaviors.

“Part of our job is to resolve problems,” SaintDic said. “People are usually looking for (sexual harassment) to stop, not to sue the offender.”

There are two ways to address sexual harassment in campus procedures – an informal process and a formal process. The informal process addresses the individual the grievance has been brought against and seeks to resolve the problem with a series of meetings. The formal process is filed with the dean of students and involves a full-blown investigation. The person filing the complaint puts their grievance in writing, which aids the investigation and the accusation against the defender.

“I think this program is effective,” said Jennifer Graham-Stevens, the Women’s Resource Center Coordinator.

On average, approximately 12 students a year report sexual harassment incidents at GCSU, but many times the matter is not serious enough to classify as sexual harassment.

The policies and processes enforced by GCSU also are in place for faculty members.

“Anybody can be the harasee and anyone can be the harasser,” Graham said. “There is typically one person who inflicts the power control. It can be a professor, but it can also be a student. We have had it in both situations.”

The policies for a professor to report sexual harassment are the same as for students. The person filing the complaint discusses the issue with someone on the Sexual Harassment Resource Team, and then proceeds to complete an informal or formal process.

In order to protect the complainant, retaliation is prohibited. According to GCSU policy, it is “unlawful to retaliate against an individual for filing a complaint of sexual harassment.”

GCSU has promised to take strong responsive actions if there is retaliation.

The Office of Institutional Equity and Diversity, and the Women’s Resource Center are located on the bottom floor of Maxwell Student Union near Chick-fil-A. Walk in students are welcome.

Officials hope that by raising awareness, sexual harassment will be better reported and that it will eventually diminish altogether. Yet, there is much work still to be done, as many students are not aware of the established policies and procedures.

“I don’t know what to do if I were sexually harassed,” Arielle Pileggi, a junior marketing major, said. “I have never heard about any issues regarding sexual harassment here, but then again, its not really one of those things people like to talk about.”

By raising awareness about sexual harassment on campus and offering confidentiality in all situations, measures are being taken by the Office of Institutional Equity and Diversity and the Women’s Resource Center to provide a safe ground for students and faculty to continue learning in a safe environment.

“Our dream is to create a campus where we are free of sexual harassment and levels of gender inequality,” SaintDic said.

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Oct 2 2009. Filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry