By Gabrielle Martin, News Editor.
Delta College is one of 22 colleges in the state of Michigan to receive funding from the state’s Campus Sexual Assault Grant Program. Out of the $500,000 that was split between the 22 schools, Delta College was awarded $28,850.
Schools had to apply and propose a plan in order to receive these funds. Some campuses proposed training for campus officials and students, others proposed funding for drink coasters that change color if the drink has been tampered with.
Delta College will use the funds to host a campus-wide competition.Students will create video scripts that cover one of three topics: consent, risk reduction or bystander intervention. The scripts will then be critiqued by the Underground Railroad of Saginaw, Bay Area Women’s Shelter of Bay City,Shelter House in Midland, Robert Battinkoff – Delta’s police chief and Loyce Brown – Delta’s Title IX Coordinator.
A winning script from each of the three categories will be chosen,and the winner will receive $500.The script will be made into an educational video that will go on Delta’s website, become part of student orientation and be available to the three area women’s shelters, local high schools and any other group who would like them.
For this project, Delta received more money than Ferris State University, Michigan State University and University of Michigan – Ann Arbor.
“They were looking for something that was not traditional,” says Brown. “Maybe the fact that we were including our students in the development in everything and…because we show a true community collaborative effort; we brought in all 3 counties, we brought in the experts, which were the centers…I think our collaborative effort made it stand out.”
All $28,850 will go toward this competition. Faculty advisors who help the students make the videos will be paid a stipend and the local women’s shelters will receive a stipend for their assistance. Students directing their scripts, the actors and crew making the videos will be paid as well.
Delta student Tathin Schaub, 18,thinks this competition is a good way to inform people about sexual assault prevention. “It’s something fun,” he says.
However, Delta student Melissa Reimus, 20, feels that – while the videos are a creative way to get information out – it’s not the best use of the funds Delta was given.
“I feel like there are better things they could be putting the money towards than these little videos,” she says. She suggests using the money to form groups that would “get people who haven’t been sexually assaulted [to think about] what sexual assault and sexual harassment is.”
Brown says that, while Delta has been fortunate enough to not have to deal with many cases of sexual assault on campus, it is important that we talk about consent and risk reduction – not just from a victim’s standpoint, but from a perpetrator’s standpoint as well.
“I think ignorance gets some perpetrators in trouble,” she states.
Brown says that we have almost become immune to the reality and severity of sexual assault and harassment because we see it on television all of the time – and laugh at it!
“By laughing at it, it makes people on some level think it’s OK when it’s going to get you in trouble.I mean, that’s the reality of it,” she says. “TV and movies might be away to escape reality but they paint a false picture for us in terms of relationships.”
Brown says that bystander intervention is also important when it comes to sexual assault. She says that hopefully these videos – by students and for students – will have some good suggestions on how bystanders can intervene without feeling intrusive or nosey.
“I think a lot of people have trouble with that,” says Schaub.“If someone was being sexually assaulted in front of me, I wouldn’t know what to do.”
Reimus agrees that knowing how to deal with sexual assault as a bystander can be challenging and many struggle with how to act – sometimes they simply walkaway. “If there are a lot of other people around, people pass off the responsibility,” she says.
“Sometimes we’re thinking‘that’s not my business,’ ” says Brown, “but when someone is sexually assaulted it kind of becomes all of our business [because] we don’t know if we will be the next one.”
Advertising for the competition will begin Dec. 1, with scripts due Feb. 26.
More information can be found at www.delta.edu/equity/project-safe-campus.
