What I learned About Sexual Assault Education in Higher Education from NASPA
My law school education has led me down a rather unique professional path. While my fellow classmates dreamed of fighting all manner of legal battles in the courtroom, my legal journey led me to use my Juris Doctorate to compete with the other doctors of philosophy in the world of academia. Landing my first post law school job as the Director of Equity & Diversity and Title IX Coordinator at a four-year, state university, placed one of my feet in the legal world and the other in higher education; two professions where appearances are held in the highest of regard.
While attorneys take their carefully manicured headshots in front of a grand wall of never-read law books, the world of higher education is one where the letters at the end of your name are often more important than your name itself and published journal articles act as high currency.
And then there are the conferences.
Presenting your research at an academic conference is one of those expected tasks for higher education practitioners looking to elevate their CV. It is considered a high honor to be chosen to fly out to a large city, check into the “conference block” of slightly discounted hotel rooms, and give an hour-long lecture to a room full of your colleagues. Given the numerous scholastic and professional areas in higher education, you can imagine there are a magnitude of conferences that welcome attendees throughout the country, annually. And perhaps the most prestigious of these conferences is the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators (NASPA) Conference. NASPA touts itself as the “premier student affairs professional development event” where thousands of participants engage with featured speakers who provide hundreds of thoughtful educational sessions.
In 2021, I submitted a proposal to NASPA for a session teaching professionals how to create a practical and engaging sexual assault prevention curriculum for fraternity men. The proposal began by outlining the barriers that normally prevent this population from fully engaging in this type of education. Professionals would then be provided tried and tested methods on how to address these barriers. Overall, the audience would learn that by providing education that has less to do with shaking an accusatory finger and instead, focusing on forming lasting relationships, universities will be able to create allies for the continued fight against collegiate sexual assault.
The proposal was denied.
But through the denial and a reading the critical comments left by the selection panel, I learned far more information about sexual assault educations in colleges than I could by actually attending the conference. Specifically, I witnessed the stances and attitudes that still cause universities to miss the mark when it comes to providing practical and relatable sexual assault prevention education for their Greek men.
“Far more discussion of popular media coverage than research or theory”
Academics live by their academic research. Early in a student’s college career, they are taught how to search the numerous academic journals available to them for research that serves as the foundation of their essays, term papers, and final assignments. On the PhD level, the last obstacle students tackle is producing a formal piece of research called a dissertation which includes a specific research question and what other researchers have said about it. Doctoral students will endure their own data collection process and analysis, finally answering their original thesis question based on their rigorous research. In other disciplines like law school, much emphasis is placed on having your research published in a legal journal such as a law review, with the promise of an employer pleasing achievement dangling in the balance for those that do. As such, law review articles are packed with careful research including case law, statutes, and what other legal students have theorized on the same topic.
At the heart of academic research is the systematic explanation of a set of facts and laws, or the “theory”. Given its foundational significance, theory is thought of as the source of one’s research. It is the motivation that drives a specific research project and is one of the three main elements in the traditional model of the scientific method.
It can be agreed that research and theory are both important factors when presenting an idea or new method of doing something. And it is indisputable that academic journals and published dissertations are in fact, troves of scholarly knowledge. But to ignore popular media coverage and pop culture in research is a great oversight, especially when your target audience consumes this type of media in large quantities. A 2010 study from the Kaiser Family Institute, reported that students between the ages of 8 and 18 spent approximately 7.5 hours a day consuming pop culture through television, music and video games. Social media of course, is another channel in which Gen Z students intake pop culture with reports showing that students spend about three hours per day logged into sites like Instagram, Snapchat, and the addictive Tik Tok. With these levels of pop culture consumption and technology usage, it is no surprise the methods in which student prefer to be educated in, would shift as well. In a 2018 Pearson study, nearly 60% of Gen Z students reported a preference to learning from videos posted on YouTube versus learning through traditional means such as apps, textbooks, or group activities.
Simply put, understanding who your work is meant for, means understanding exactly what type of research will connect with them best. While empirical research may be what impresses the crowd at an academic conference, your typical 18 or 19-year-old freshmen likely has different interests.
As an educational tool, pop culture can be used to make concepts of sexual misconduct relatable to a younger audience. For example, consider the teaching of bystander intervention. Teaching students how the diffusion of responsibility affects group behavior provides a good academic understanding of the bystander effect and makes substantial fodder for a five-page essay on the subject. Analyzing the 2021 story of a woman being raped on a public train in Philadelphia while onlookers recorded the assault on their cell phones and refused to intervene however, provides a relatable educational center piece for discussion. Teachers can assign students to read the story, watch the CNN newsclip of the story, and then discuss times they have been in an uncomfortable public situation as a bystander.
As another example, consider a lesson plan centered on violence against women. Teaching students the statistic 35% of women worldwide have experienced either physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence or non-partner sexual violence prepares them for the semester’s final exam. But telling the story of how iconic music producer Dr. Dre, assaulted reporter Dee Barnes by slamming her head into a brick wall and brutally kicking her in the ribs due to being upset over one of her articles, allows for a more interesting teaching of violence against women. It provides students with a well-known, public figure, which allows for the removal of some of the abstractness of violence against women. It also turns a statistic into a dynamic story which opens the door for compelling conversation.
In 1988, eventual rapper and actor Tupac Shakur, gave a now iconic interview about the disparities of the education system. In between calling for classes that would teach students about relevant issues such as police brutality and drugs (past the D.A.R.E. oversimplification of “just say no”), Tupac took sex education to task as well. Tupac said:
“There should be a class on sex education. No, REAL sex education class, not just pictures and illogical terms.”
Although this quote was only a small part of the interview, it is crucial as it provides a critique on the lack of relevance in the teaching of sex and by extension, sexual assault, in the school. Education steeped in empirical research, that parrots various theories and approaches may slay the crowd at an academic conference, full of professionals with a high level of education. It may even be of interest to an upper classman or graduate student when presented in a criminal justice or behavioral studies course. But for an 18- or 19-year-old college freshman, research and theory without an agent that makes this information pertinent to them, is largely irrelevant in preparing them for the real world.
“I don’t think learning the unique barriers for fraternity men approaching sexual violence prevention as an ally is really worth going to a session for. I think everybody at Strategies already gets that.”
To indicate that education about the barriers that prevent a student population, known for their incredibly high percentage of campus rapes, from learning about sexual assault prevention is a bold declaration, considering that students themselves highlight universities consistently dropping the ball in this area. A 2014 study revealed that 43% of female students believe that their school is not doing enough to combat sexual assault on campus. Statistics such as this show that higher education practitioners may need to have a more open mind to different forms of education.
In my experience as a university Title IX coordinator, I can state that fraternity men usually encounter sexual assault prevention at two different times during their time as undergraduates. The first is during the university’s orientation activities. When I attended my freshman orientation in 2001 at the University of Louisville, our student orientation leaders performed a variety of skits designed to approach topical student issues such as time management, learning how to make friends on campus, and substance abuse. Tucked in the middle of these skits was a 90 second act on sexual assault. No information on campus resources like the Title IX office or the student advocacy center was included. The act simply ended as the orientation leaders got into place for the next one on how to study in the library.
The problem with including sexual assault prevention into orientation activities is three-fold. First, orientation is a time where students are regularly overloaded with information. Between taking class placement exams, learning the physical lay of the campus, engaging with the many recognized student organizations all vying for new membership, and locating campus resources such as the library and writing centers, a freshman’s bandwidth during orientation runs thin. It is questionable how much information the freshman will retain on this packed day. The day of orientation being crowded leads to the second issue with this method of education; schools are not able to dedicate much time to sexual assault prevention when there are other high priority topics that must be discussed. Spending minimal time on sexual consent, bystander intervention, and campus policy not only limits the amount of information that can be conveyed to students, but also sends a unconscious message about where sexual assault prevention falls on the universities pecking order of priorities. Lastly, sexual assault prevention at orientation hardly benefits eventual fraternity students as the education typically presented is of a general nature. As students have not yet committed to a fraternity at the point of orientation, general education makes more sense for a group of unaffiliated students. Students who do decide to go Greek however, will soon find themselves in a microcosm of campus life full of its own unique situations that require more than general education to navigate.
The second point where sexual assault prevention education is presented to fraternity men comes in the form of punishment for assaults that have already happened. It is not uncommon to see fraternities engage in educational sessions after a chapter incident has become public and adjudicated by the student conduct process. In some cases, these education sessions are mandated by the university’s judicial arm. Other times, a fraternity will preemptively arrange chapter education as a way of “falling on their sword.” Regardless of which party coordinates this type of leaning, it is rarely received enthusiastically. Rather, it is more common for fraternity members approach this brand of education as an annoyance; a necessary evil required to eventually restore their chapter’s standing in the campus community.
While wedging presentations in the middle of already crowded orientation programs, presenting education as a punishment, and requiring fraternity members to hurriedly click through online educational modules may do well in checking off boxes on a compliance checklist, research has shown that brief, introductory programs focused on awareness are not effective at changing attitudes and behaviors in the long-run. Instead, a more focused and comprehensive program is needed to focus on a group’s specific environment and issues, making the training more relatable and the effect longer lasting. Take for example, The U.S. Naval Academy’s Sexual Harassment and Assault Prevention Education (SHAPE) program. This four-year curriculum is designed specifically for midshipmen with the goal of guiding them through the peer education sessions, various seminars and scenarios that mirror real-life situations that junior officers will face. SHAPE doesn’t just check a box; it embeds healthy sexual behavior in the academy’s culture.
In my book “The Title IX Guy: Several Short Essays on Masculinity (Both the Good and Bad Kind), Rape Culture, and Other Things We Should Be Talking About”, I discuss at length, the elements that make sexual assault prevention education a taboo topic for fraternities. Uncomfortable self-evaluation, organizational tradition, accusatory tones in teaching, and generational toxic masculinity, all act as barriers to educating fraternity men on sexual assault prevention. To understand these barriers is to understand your audience. And understanding your audience, allows educators to create targeted and practical education that will not only keep fraternity men engaged, but will lead to sexual assault education inspiring cultural change instead of being another box checking activity.
“Indicating that fraternity men are incapable of learning from those who do not identify with them seems to digress from a promising approach to intervention.”
Perhaps the most authoritative word on practical methods to teach fraternity men about sexual assault prevention, comes from the audience itself. In November 2021, I was hired by the Interfraternity Council at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana, to do a half day of consulting work. At 9:00AM on a brisk Friday morning, several hundred fraternity men fought through the remaining haze of the previous night’s social shenanigans to corral into a lecture hall in the university’s business school. For four hours, I taught these young men how to build their own new member sexual assault education programs. We worked together to craft chapter mission statements for the fraternities to use as their north star when addressing sexual misconduct. Lastly, each of these men walked out of the room with a baseline knowledge of bystander intervention as I navigated them through the Green Dot certification process. While previous calls to the university’s Greek Life office to provide this exact same education had previously led to numerous unanswered emails and ignored voicemails, here I was guest lecturing in the Kelley School of Business at the request of the students themselves.
This half day was void of any complex terminology. The presentation of statistics was kept at a minimum. The tweed jacket with the leather patches was kept at home. Rather, I chose a hunter green L.L. Bean Snap Tee, jeans and a pair of Sperry Topsiders to match the casual aesthetic of the day. And from time to time, a little colorful language was sprinkled in as a tool of relatability. After the final lecture was given, several of the men hung back to express their gratitude and take a few pictures. One young man made a statement that showed his gratefulness in the way the information was presented. He said:
“It was so refreshing to have someone who understands us to come and speak about this stuff. This has been the best presentation we’ve ever had on this stuff and it’s because you understand us and know the things we’re going through.”
This statement is reveals several things. First, it highlights that the university has attempted this type of education in the past. Perhaps it was the school’s Title IX coordinator. Or maybe it was a speaker from the campus advocacy center. Regardless, someone has previously approached this audience before. The second thing this statement shows is that the level of unrelatability between these previous speakers and the students affected the delivery of the message. This is evident as the student placed an emphasis on the fact that it was my understanding of them that made this “the best presentation they’ve ever had” on sexual assault prevention.
To ignore the significance of being able to relate to students as an educator, flies directly in the face of research done to highlight the need of diverse faculty in the classroom. A 2017 study surveyed 80,000 public school students across six different states. The study found that when students had teachers of the same race as them, they reported feeling more cared for, more interested in their schoolwork and more confident in their teachers’ abilities to communicate with them.
Gender is another area where a student being able to identify with their teacher produces unique benefits. In a 2015 Texas A&M study, the analysis of the test scores of 14,000 South Korean middle school students, showed that when being taught by a woman, girl’s test scores were almost 10% higher than the scores of the boys in the study. Female students in the study reported feeling that their female teachers are more likely to give students an equal chance and are more likely to encourage creative expression.
It must be noted that these studies do not state students of color and female students are incapable of learning from teachers of a different race or sex. It does, however, highlight the student’s benefits gained by learning from a teacher they identify with. The same principle applies to those who teach students in Greek organizations. Theoretically, anyone can teach a fraternity the Green Dot curriculum, which provides a premade script and PowerPoint presentation for its trainers to follow. An instructor that has an audience he identifies with however, is able to infuse this lecture with relatable scenarios and common fraternity examples that the audience can see themselves in. He is also able to do this with a higher sense of authority than a lecturer who has not lived these examples themselves. Fraternity men are capable of learning from anyone. But when the lesson comes from someone they identify with, as the kids say, it hits different.
If a university’s goal is to better fraternity culture by including heathy sexual behavior as a priority, administrators must approach new methods of education with an open mind. Administrators must refrain from shying away from seminars that don’t match the research templates they were taught in their PhD level classes and understand the importance of relatability with the audience they seek to effect.
As for the presenters wishing to change the culture with new and innovative workshops, while conferences like NASPA may stand tall as the industry standard for presenting and exchanging research, it is important to consider some of the lesser-known conferences that will put you directly in front ofthe your desired audience. Conferences like the ones hosted by Southeast Greeks , the Association of Fraternal Leadership & Values, and the North American Interfraternity Conference, allow presenters not only the opportunity to present their research, but to speak to the audience that will benefit from it the most.
