When Emily Durand first traveled from Mississippi to Syracuse University for her freshman year in 2015, she had never taken a sex education class. Her health education teachers had never even explained to her what periods were.

But after arriving at SU and discovering It’s On Us — a social movement established to raise public awareness about sexual assault on college campuses — Durand learned what sexual violence and consent were. And then, she realized she had been sexually assaulted by her current partner during their four-year relationship, Durand said.

“I didn’t have anything, and I didn’t know what consent really meant,” Durand said. “I didn’t know what sexual assault or rape or coercion looked like.”

In the past year since the #MeToo movement first went viral, individuals and institutions across industries have grappled with the pervasiveness of sexual assault in American culture and the changing dynamics on how to combat it. At universities across the United States, #MeToo has inspired institutional changes and a fierce outpouring of student-led activism to make student voices — and experiences — heard.

“It creates pressure on institutions,” said Kyle Rosenblum, SU’s Student Association vice president. “A social movement that’s saying this is a problem and we need to address it — for institutions that are failing to do so, there’s going to be a lot of backlash on them.”

During the SA election season this past April, then-candidates Ghufran Salih and Rosenblum designed a five-pillar campaign platform that included the creation of a sexual assault report resource. Now, as president and vice president of the 2018-19 academic year, Salih and Rosenblum said they are more committed than ever to help create administrative change in the way SU officials research, investigate and handle alleged assaults on campus.

The inspiration for their proposed sexual assault report came, in part, from the mental health report compiled by former SA President Eric Evangelista and Vice President Joyce LaLonde in spring 2017. The report helped encourage SU administrative officials to allocate more funding and resources into SU’s Counseling Center as part of the Invest Syracuse initiative. Salih and Rosenblum said they hope a sexual assault report will yield similar results in increasing the number of sexual assault and relationship violence programs and resources available to students in need.

“A lot of light was being shed on the resources and the lack thereof of resources and follow-up from the university to victims of sexual assault and relationship violence,” Salih said.

But changing the culture surrounding sexual assault requires more than just administrative efforts, Durand said. Serving as It’s On Us’ at-large adviser, Durand works in close capacity with regional advisers outside of SU to build up campus chapters according to national standards. She said the benefits of It’s On Us and its appeal to students resides largely in its peer-to-peer organizational framework.

“Having it come from students rather than the administration — especially in a time right now where I think there’s not as much trust in our administration — I do think it’s important because people like hearing things from their peers,” Durand said. “We work closely with the administration, but ultimately our educational tactics are peer-to-peer.”

Rape reports at SU the past four years, per the Jeanne Clery Act

Working alongside SU’s Office of Health Promotion, It’s On Us not only provides educational resources for students regarding sexual assault, safe sex practices and consent, but also gives students opportunities to talk about the impact sexual assault and violence have had on their own lives.

One of their programs, Cookies and Consent, encourages students to come and talk about a variety of issues, such as the #MeToo movement and sexual assault allegations against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. Durand said that, sometimes, for victims of sexual assault, talking to a therapist isn’t the most proactive solution. By providing students with peer-led resources, she hopes they are better able to find a validating support system within their respective communities.

“I’ve been mostly unplugged from (the Kavanaugh hearing), and that’s how I’ve been practicing self-care,” Durand said. “I still know the headlines and everything, and I still have a general idea, but I’m not able to engage with the discourse on Facebook right now. I view self-care as an act of resistance in itself.”

According to the 2018 Annual Security Report conducted by the Department of Public Safety, 13 reported rape cases occurred on Main Campus in 2017, along with six incidents of forcible fondling.

But those are only the number of reported incidents. With Salih and Rosenblum’s proposed sexual assault report, they hope students will feel more comfortable not only reporting sexual assault and domestic violence cases on campus, but also that administrators will help implement administrative changes in how investigations are conducted.

Ryan Golden, an SA student assembly member and opinion columnist for The Daily Orange, reaffirmed that support for sexual assault victims is a core focus of Salih and Rosenblum’s administration. Golden said that in order for SU to undergo long-lasting changes in how it approaches sexual assault, there needs to be a greater emphasis on “trauma-informed” reporting.

When running for student assembly representative last spring, Golden campaigned on bringing the sexual assault reporting app, Callisto, to campus. An attempt to implement the app at SU failed during the 2016-17 academic year due to web security concerns. But after speaking with members of SU’s Information Technology Services Center and other universities who have successfully adopted the program, Golden said he believes the app has the potential to create real, proactive change in how students and administrators alike approach sexual assault.

“It’s created by people who have been through sexual assault, so it’s trauma-informed, which is an important aspect to sexual assault reporting,” Golden said. “I think that what we would see is people feeling more comfortable reporting, and then hopefully later on, less people would have to report.”

The program also allows students to document when sexual assaults occur before reporting the incident to campus officials, timestamping each entry to protect students from issues related to delayed assault reports.

Stalking reports at SU the past four years, per the Jeanne Clery Act

“I think right now, what we’re seeing with the Kavanaugh hearings are issues of waiting too long to report,” he said. “(Callisto) will recognize that it happened years ago or months ago, and I’m reporting it now because I feel comfortable.”

Most importantly, Golden said that the app would allow sexual assault victims to advocate on behalf of themselves, in their own words and on their own terms.

The numbers of sexual assault reports aren’t just numbers, Durand said. They’re people.

“I was personally in a really toxic relationship for four years. I was sexually assaulted, and I realized what was going on with me in that situation when I came here,” she said.

Four years later, Durand is no longer in a sexually abusive relationship. What she is, she said, is this: she is a School of Education marshal, a member of the Kappa Delta Pi honor society and is on track to graduate with a degree in selected studies in education. The life she has found in It’s On Us, she said, has given her so much more than what she started with four years ago.

As Durand sets her sights on life after graduation, the institution she refers to as “her baby” is preparing to enter a new chapter in its own life, as well: It’s On Us has officially been confirmed as a Registered Student Organization.

“It literally changed my life,” she said. “I was able to be empowered enough to have the privilege of leaving that situation.”

Published on October 2, 2018 at 11:34 pm

Contact Kelsey: [email protected] | @writtenbykelsey