While the Campaign for an Advocacy Center and its allies appreciate your recent email concerning “gender-based and sexual violence,” we’d like to continue to push for more answers and accountability on this issue. We were happy to see you use your recent email as a statement of support and acknowledgement of the work that has been done. While we are delighted that you’ve stated your willingness to implement all of the workgroup’s imperatives, the campus community remains unclear about the current situation of these issues. Where is the timeline? Who is overseeing the implementation? We understand that the original workgroup has been disbanded, so who is making sure these imperatives go forward?

In addition, we acknowledge the White Ribbon Campaign and Be S.U.R.E. are a great start, but the reality is that in order to end sexual assault and gender-based violence at SU, we need to see more resources, including much more money going into these initiatives. We adamantly support the workgroup’s recommendation of a hub where all survivor resources are housed. This hub with a dedicated place for sexual assault prevention work and community center will help to fill the existing hole created when the Advocacy Center was closed. This needs to happen as soon as possible. The Office of Health Promotions is not the correct placement for these initiatives; indeed, sexual assault prevention should have its own office.

Furthermore, we believe you have a wonderful opportunity to explain exactly what affirmative consent is to the entire SU community. It would be incredibly beneficial to communicate from the desk of the chancellor what Yes Means Yes looks like in practice, and to provide a timeline for the implementation of the workgroup recommendations and explanation of the resources that currently exist.

Again, we appreciate your attention to these issues. However, we have reason to remain vigilant. The campus community deserves to see the timeline of the workgroup’s imperatives, to know who is responsible for implementing these, and we all need to see more resources going toward sexual assault prevention and survivor support. We need to continue to push for accountability and transparency on these important issues.

We look forward to your answers.
Signed,

The Campaign for an Advocacy Center at SU and Brittany Moore, S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications | School of Information Studies, Renee Crown University Honors Program ‘15, Chancellor’s Workgroup on Sexual Violence Prevention, Education, and Advocacy; Rebecca Glaser, G ‘15; Madeleine Slade; Meaghan Greeley, MSW candidate 2016, Chancellor’s Workgroup on Sexual Violence Prevention, Education, and Advocacy, Sexual Assault Survivor; Donasia Sykes ’15; Sherri Williams, Ph.D. candidate (2015), S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, Newhouse alum 2010; Daniel Cheifer, Ph.D. candidate, Religion Department (2015), Humanities Center Dissertation Fellow; John Colasacco, Writing Program; Maria J. Carson, Religion Ph.D. student, exp. graduation 2018; Hasmik Djoulakian, THE General Body, Divest SU 2017; Laura Cohen ’15; Farrell Greenwald Brenner ‘17; Colton Jones, Psychology, Arts and Sciences ’15; Nichole Maxwell, parent of SU senior; Maggie Mahoney, concerned community member and sexual violence survivor; Chen Chen, M.F.A. Creative Writing ’15; Derek Ford, Ph.D. candidate, Cultural Foundations of Education; Miles Marcotte, Geography ‘16; Yanira Rodriguez, Ph.D. 2018 Composition and Cultural Rhetoric Program