The University of California, Santa Barbara was where the daughter of the man on speaker phone was raped.Īs a fourth-year college student, I often find myself looking back on my first year, both nostalgically and critically. In the final scenes, it finally appeared. And when he names the campus where that rape occurred, I blanch.įor more than 100 minutes, The Hunting Ground bombard s the audience with the names and logos of dozens of universities where rape has become an “epidemic.” From start to finish, I watched the film through squinted eyes, anticipating the name of my campus. The voice is that of a middle-aged man, recounting the details of his daughter’s rape. “The intersection between activism and education begins in the classroom,” deYoung said.įor more information about GVSU’s resources for victims or advocates, visit the Women’s Center in Room 1201 of the Kirkhof Center.In the final shot of the documentary, our protagonists sit in the car, listening to an ominous voicemail on speakerphone.
GVSU and the surrounding communities are always open to anyone who wants to reach out and are always working on constantly striving to educate anybody that is interested about it. “What you can do is believe them and support them in any way you can,” Haist said. When it comes to supporting a victim that opens up about an assault, Haist said being there for them is the most important factor. Rowland focused on the differences between disclosure and reporting and what she does as Title IX coordinator, which includes oversight of Title IX activities and education and training for the GVSU community when it comes to supporting victims. “Of course we’re always trying to embed what our options are to students in lots of different ways.” “Ideally, I’d love to say that students know about (their resources) but realistically, there’s 25,000 students at Grand Valley,” Schulte said. If a student wants to reach out to resources off campus, they were encouraged to consider the YWCA as their primary option. Preventative education is offered through the victim advocate as well as through the Women’s Center and the Milton E. Once the discussion began, it centered around the resources that GVSU offers on campus. The panelists included Casey Perisin from the counseling center, Patti Haist from YWCA West Central Michigan, Mary deYoung, a sociology professor and the lead Title IX investigator, Theresa Rowland, Title IX coordinator, with Schulte rounding out the panel. The audience took part in a panel discussion following the screening, asking questions about policies and procedures and talking to the panelists for their thoughts about the issue. The event, which took place in the Cook-DeWitt Center, drew in about 60 attendees. “What’s GV doing? I’d rather own the challenge that students are presenting to their institutions and talk about what we’re doing here rather than students seeing it on their own.” “I’d like for us to have a good conversation about it before (the documentary) hits mainstream media,” she said. The film, which was released in February at the Sundance Film Festival, was screened on Tuesday to keep the on-campus conversation flowing about the realities of sexual assault at college and at GVSU.Īshley Schulte, GVSU’s victim advocate, arranged the screening as a preventative education piece that all students were invited to.
The film centers around several students discussing their experiences being sexually assaulted on their campuses and being ignored after trying to report the crime or forced to jump through unnecessary hoops by administration. In light of the push to end sexual assault on campus, a documentary called “The Hunting Ground” was released.
The announcement of the federal investigation opened up GVSU students’ eyes and sparked conversation about the reality of sexual assault on campus. are currently under investigation for Title IX violations, and Grand Valley State University is among them. Recently, sexual assault has become a larger part of the national conversation, especially at universities.