Education in prevention: A look into Ohio University's sexual violence education

Illustration by Emily Crebs.

Editor’s Note: This story is part of a collaboration with Ohio State University’s The Lantern. Student Perceptions of Sexual Violence On Campus, a look at the state of sexual violence prevalence, education and reporting on our respective campuses.

Intersectional education is a vital aspect in prevention of sexual violence, especially on college campuses. Any federally funded institution is required to provide sexual violence education programs. 

Every Ohio University undergraduate student is required to complete an online training module on sexual violence harm reduction through a program called Everfi. According to a survey done by The New Political and The Lantern, students from both Ohio U and Ohio State University rated the education provided by their universities a combined average of 3.34, based on a scale of 1 to 5. This survey received 59 responses; 27 respondents were students from OSU and 32 respondents were students from Ohio U. 

Ohio U’s Office of Health Promotion provides health and well-being programs for the campus community. The office offers a range of training pertaining to violence prevention on campus. 

Power-based personal violence prevention on Ohio U’s Athens campus is headed by Ann Brandon, associate director of Ohio U Health Promotion. She works to create culture change surrounding sexual violence. 

“The individual-level training is where a lot of resources and universities themselves focus on changing the behavior and enhancing the skills of students,” Brandon said. 

However, the approach needs to be multifaceted and intersectional. 

“It’s not just all on students,” Brandon said. “Staff really needs to be trained in supporting the efforts of students, our communities need to be part of those training and our policies need to reflect these changes and culture change must be normalized.”

The Survivor Advocacy Outreach Program is an organization based in Athens County that serves to empower “the community and all survivors of sexual violence to live free of sexual violence, domestic violence and stalking,” according to SAOP’s mission statement. 

Heather Mitchell, the direct service supervisor for SAOP, organizes and delivers the volunteer trainings offered by SAOP. One of these trainings includes a 40 hour comprehensive training on the complexities of sexual violence held three times a year. 

“The students have done so much for bringing these conversations to the forefront, I'm always impressed,'' Mitchell said.

In 2013, the Clery Act was amended to include mandatory campus-wide sexual violence prevention and education programs in order to participate in federal financial aid programs. While the Everfi training checks a box for the federal mandate, Brandon added they are a part of a much bigger picture. 

97.4% of students from TNP and The Lantern’s survey said they have used the education resources provided by university required training modules. 31% said they have used in-person trainings. 

Regarding the effectiveness of online training modules, Brandon said Everfi “was a cluster this year.” She said it did not work or launch properly, and some professors received undergrad assignments for sexual violence.

“I don't like online trainings. Personally, I barely can do them. Like I can barely sit through them,” Mitchell said. “You can show a PowerPoint but, what we really need to be talking about is nuance.”

The impact reports could be affected by this issue with Everfi, but there are much more effective programs offered by both Health Promotion and SAOP.

“That deeper connected, supported training and engagement are really what builds skills,” Bandon said. 

An online training is better than nothing, Mitchell shared, but an in-person training offers a more human perspective that you can’t get from a screen. 

The most requested programs are the bystander intervention, healthy sexuality or consent training, according to Brandon.

Brandon said the culture change must go above even that one time, one hour program, and that it needs “to be a larger focused effort that has multiple layers that follow a public health approach.”

For multi-level comprehensive programming, it is important that the person delivering the programming to particular audiences shares a close identity with that audience, Brandon said. It should not be a one size fits all program. 

“In primary prevention, we want to stop the harm before it even happens. The message isn't just to perpetrators, and it isn’t just to survivors,” Brandon said. “Only 10% of men-identified individuals are perpetrators, so you can’t come into a space and say ‘Don’t be a perpetrator’ because you’re going to shut people down. They turn away and go, ‘Well that’s not my issue, because I don’t harm anyone.’ We need everyone to be engaged and not feel attacked as perpetrators.”

In Brandon’s time as associate director, she had to focus on restructuring most of the content and programming concerning power-based personal violence. 

“We had to dial back everything that was being done because it wasn’t centered in intersectional approaches. The programming that was being delivered had a lot of old content (10 to 15 years old), so I just put the breaks on it,” Brandon said. “It was basically telling folks in bystander prevention to call the police as the first option, which is not safe for a number of people.” 

The process of reevaluating the old programming meant saying ‘no’ is sometimes the best option. 

“I would rather have something not done than something harmful to go out,” Brandon said. 

While this restructuring took time, money and labor, Brandon shared that “OU is behind this…the support is there.”

“We have Better Bystanders, we have a power-based personal violence program, we have consent training, but we haven’t had a lot of requests,” Brandon said. 

However, Brandon said students are getting more involved in the conversation about changing the culture now more than ever. 

“I think we all have to be better bystanders. I think that's where it starts,” Mitchell said. 

Mitchell said although SAOP has not seen many faculty members at volunteer trainings they offer, students make up for about two thirds of their participants. 

“Everybody is responsible for keeping our campuses safe,” Brandon said.