UMaine’s Safe Campus Project was founded in 2001 to raise awareness
on campus about the presence of sexual and domestic violence in a
community where many would be surprised to hear of its prevalence. Safe
Campus offered specialized counseling services to affected University
members for six years before the government grant-funded program was
deemed to be so highly valued by the campus community, it was continued
as a freestanding organization based out of the Women’s Resource Center.
The last coordinator of the Safe Campus Project resigned in June, and
a replacement coordinator has not been instated. The program itself is
now being reconfigured as the “Sexual Violence Response, Education and
Prevention Program.” Dean of Students Robert Dana claims that this
replacement program will more than adequately perform the same functions
as the Safe Campus Project and perhaps do so even more thoroughly
across the campus community. Now that it will be based out of the
Division of Student Affairs, it will thus be more incorporated into
programs like Residential Life and Greek organizations, perhaps gaining
greater influence.
The foreseeable issue with the effectiveness of the new program has
nothing to do with whether the same services are being carried over from
the old one, or if they are more widely advertised within certain
sectors of the campus community. It is not a question of whether the
counselors will be equipped with the same level of specialized training.
The main concern is that the anonymity and confidentiality of the
Safe Campus Project, which previously distinguished it from other
counseling services available on campus, will no longer be guaranteed.
As a more independent program, Safe Campus chose to interpret legal
constraints liberally in order to more effectively advocate for the
students who retained their services. Incorporated under the Office of
Student Affairs, the new Sexual Violence Response, Education and
Prevention Program will be obligated to take certain legal action in
response to reports of sexual violence, compromising the usually highly
valued element of confidentiality provided by services like Safe Campus.
It is an unfortunate likelihood that this new configuration of the
old program could result in fewer reports of sexual and domestic
violence. Victims of sexual violence are far less likely to report
incidents to the proper authorities than they are to seek counseling
that offers a confidentiality clause. An administrative organization
that necessarily handles reports of sexual assault in a way that avoids
legal liability will, at least for that reason, be a less effective tool
for outreach and prevention.
Dean Dana has agreed that in light of the apparent increase in sexual
violence on college campuses nationwide, sexual assault response
services need to remain oriented toward assisting the victims. However,
it is worth considering that the new mechanism at UMaine for providing
those services may be less effective, simply by virtue of their
different relationship to University administration, and this potential
change merits a watchful eye from the community.
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