visit www.depaulasu.net for pictures

Text by Fatima Arain

Studies have shown that between 1/6 - 1/4 of college aged women has been a victim of sexual assault during their college years. DePaul is not immune!

There are ZERO resources at DePaul exclusively for sexual assault survivors on campus. UIC has an entire center and Loyola has a coordinator and a peer education and training program.

A few years ago, concerned students submitted a proposal to get a Sexual Assault/Intimate Partner Violence Coordinator hired. Instead, a taskforce that has met only ONCE this year was created. The proposal was resubmitted last year, and largely ignored.

RISE was created last year to create awareness about sexual assault on campus. We created an extensive website as a basic resource for students, conduct workshops for dorms, fraternities, and classes, and have met with many administrators to talk about the issue. Our latest attempt to convince the University of the severity of this issue was a letter campaign in which 300 letters from students and faculty were sent to the President, asking for a resource coordinator position to be created.

We cannot be patient for much longer. We are holding a sit-in, and the more people that attend, the more powerful message we will send to the University.

Be a part of the change and help us make a real and significant difference at DePaul.

After the Sit-Out:

I want to congratulate everyone on a doing a really great job at the sit-in on Wednesday [May 23, 2007] and Thursday!

Thanks to all of you, we passed out over 1200 flyers, camped out in front of the student center all night, talked to countless students, faculty, admin, and community members, and gave voice to survivors of sexual assault on campus! In 28 hours, we educated SO many people about this important issue Thank you!!

We also met with Jim Doyle, VP of Student Affairs, and Cindy Summers. Jim Doyle promised us that this issue would be resolved by June 15th at the latest. Cindy Summers gave us a verbal agreement of figuring out a way to create a sexual assault resource coordinator position. Although we did not get EXACTLY what we wanted on Thursday, we are well on our way!!!

We are meeting with Jim Doyle and Cindy Summers once again on Wednesday, May 30 to discuss the issue further. I will keep everyone posted on what comes of this meeting. Thanks again everyone!!!! You are all a part of making DePaul a safer environment for everyone!

(please forward this along so people can be aware of whats going on!! THANKS!!!)