Futures Without Violence is looking for current students in the Boston area to serve on their student advisory board for campus violence programs. Reach out to contact@safercampus.org if you or someone you know might be interested!
Most everyone is familiar with the phrase “freshman 15,” which traditionally describes the extra 15 pounds that college students gain in their first year of college. In light of the fact that the first semester, or 15 weeks, is the most dangerous for female freshmen, with increased incidents of rape and sexual assault on U.S. college campuses, we are repositioning the phrase for a public campaign. (Kimble, 2008).
Our “Safe On Campus” campaign will continue to build momentum during the seven months of the school year that follow – with calls for policy change, strategies for prevention and intervention on U.S. campuses, and targeted media outreach to raise visibility of this issue. The primary objective is to increase the number of Schools that are willing to create comprehensive prevention and response policies as outlined in Beyond Title IX: Guidelines for Preventing and Responding to Gender-based violence in Higher Education.
The campaign will contain five elements: A Boston based “Freshman 15” Summit to encourage student activism and engagement, a national student award program, a parent survey, material development, and communications focusing on outreach to college administrators and the media. Descriptions of each element are included below.
Student Activism and Engagement
The campaign will launch with a day-long summit focusing on the increased risk of sexual assault during the first 15 weeks of freshman year. Fifteen student leaders from multiple universities will be recruited to plan and organize the summit in Boston for September 2012 for 250 attendees. The Freshman 15 Summit will attract media attention through an agenda that includes performances, workshops, leadership plenary session, social media objectives, and national award program announcement by celebrity appearance. The award program will incentivize students to organize on their college campuses and engage their presidents in the solutions to gender based violence.
Parents as Influencers
Hart Research and Associates will develop a national survey for parents of high school aged college bound students (juniors and seniors) and college freshman and sophomores asking question about their beliefs and knowledge about sexual and physical violence on campus and what they are willing to do about it. The data will be released prior to Boston Summit and used to inform creative concepts and tools for parents as well as provide the foundation for a PR outreach campaign.
Material Development/Communications
Futures Without Violence will create a series of tools that includes distilling policy guidelines to “Top 15”, creating a “Top 15 things To Pack When You Go off to College” worksheet and a series of adaptable roommate/friend/team/fraternity agreements. We will also partner with LipmanHearne PR for to create communications materials and to conduct outreach to national media and function as a liaison with college administrators. All of these materials and efforts will tie into a social media campaign to advance prevention of sexual assault and promote the guidelines.
The results of the twelve month campaign will be: 1). Increased implementation of the guidelines on college campuses throughout the country 2). Increased awareness of solutions to gender based violence and increased interventions during first 15 weeks of school, particularly for freshman women. 3). Increased numbers of presidents as spokespeople and 4). More parents talking to their teens and schools as they head off to college.
