First, some SAFER business—

It looks like we didn’t win the Ideablob contest, which sucks, but I want to thank everyone again for all of the support: the votes, blog posts, RTs, emails…it was amazing, thank you so much. It’s good to know we have such good people standing behind us.

I also want to remind people that we are currently looking for new Board members. All of the details are located in that link to Jen’s original post, but I wanted to throw in my own two cents: I’ve been on the Board of SAFER since May, and it has been an unbelievably valuable experience. Thinking of it as a Board of Directors doesn’t really do it justice—we are (currently) 8 people who run an organization in our spare time (we are all employed full time or are students outside of SAFER). That’s a huge commitment, but it’s an incredibly satisfying one. The past 5 months have been an amazing crash course in nonprofit management and planning, grassroots organizing, and sexual assault prevention—I have learned so so much, and have had the chance to work with a badass group of people whose passion for the work is nothing less than inspiring. So I encourage folks to submit an application. It can be a lot of work, but I think it’s worth it. Check out the above link and for more information and an applcation, please contact Jennifer Howard, Board Development Coordinator, at jennifer@safercampus.org.

Onto some awesome stuff coming out of colleges down in DC/VA:

A writer at the College of William and Mary’s student newspaper talks about the important role of positive peer pressure in sexual assault prevention.

Fraternities at George Washington University are challenging the assumption that “frat boys” are sexist and homophobic, and holding their brothers to higher standards.

At Georgetown, “R U Ready? encourages collaboration among students from diverse backgrounds and addresses sexual assault and its effects on victims.” (h/t Men Can Stop Rape’s twitter)

A little good news as we go into the weekend! Georgetown University has plans to open a center for LGBTQ students. People wouldn’t usually think of this as part of a “sexual assault policy,” but I think it absolutely is. First off, Queer students are likely targets for violence, but are often afraid of going to the usual crisis services because of the homophobia and transphobia they might encounter. And there’s just no denying that many men who commit sexual assault are doing so in an effort to “prove” their masculinity by demonstrating their heterosexual street cred. If we got rid of the sexual assaults that were hate crimes directed at Queer people and the sexual assaults that came out of weirdo homophobic insecurities, I think we’d see a real reduction in the numbers. This is what real prevention looks like.