A new Web site providing resources for abuse, assault and discrimination is now available for students. Campus Life officials launched the site after a series of student complaints that the University's previous efforts to provide information for victims of assault and abuse were inefficient.
The site was created to consolidate information about such issues and incidents on and around campus.
"We saw what we perceived as a lack of accessibility to information surrounding these issues," said Russell Carey '91 MA'06, interim vice president for campus life and student services. For example, information regarding discrimination was found on the Web site of the Office of Institutional Diversity, where a student may not know to look, while information about related issues could only be found on the Web sites for Health Education or the Office of Student Life, Carey said.
"We realize that these are different issues, but what they have in common is that Brown takes them very seriously," Carey said. "We needed a way to consolidate what information was available to make it more user-friendly, and I think that this Web site makes the information accessible and easy to find."
The Web site's home page provides telephone numbers for a crisis hotline, Health Services and an administrator on-call as well as links to subsections about harassment and discrimination, sexual harassment, sexual assault and dating abuse. Each of these specific sub-sections gives a definition of the offense, information about how to seek assistance and external links about the topic.
The creation of the new Web site follows a semester of "protests and activism" spurred by issues surrounding sexual assaults, discrimination and hate crimes, said Margaret Klawunn, associate vice president for campus life and dean of student life. Klawunn cited the formation of the student group Coalition for Police Accountability and Institutional Transparency as an impetus for creating the site.
"Students were confused about what resources should be accessed and who to contact, and it was clear that even though we were providing information, we were not doing it in such a way that was easily accessible," Klawunn said.
Once the students' concerns were brought to the attention of University officials, representatives from the OSL, Sarah Doyle Women's Center, Health Education, Psychological Services and other offices assessed the availability of resources for sexual assault, abuse and discrimination. The group decided to create the Web site to provide "24-hour, consolidated information in one central location," Klawunn said.
Campus life administrators sent a campus-wide e-mail before winter break to publicize the Web site, but administrators involved with the project stressed the need to increase awareness.
University officials stress their efforts to publicize the site and make it accessible, but Josh Teitelbaum '08 and Gina Rodriguez '08 told The Herald that the site only serves as a "PR tool" for the administration. Teitelbaum and Rodriguez are both student coordinators of Co-PAIT but spoke to The Herald about their personal opinions and not on behalf of Co-PAIT.
"The site does not make any changes, but instead takes language that (student organizers) have used and does not really address the questions posed," Teitelbaum said.
"They need more than words on a page," Rodriguez said. "You need actual policies, not just links to the same administrators that already haven't done anything."
Both students also noted their difficulty in finding the site, a lack of communication about the Web site to residential peer leaders and a lack of general knowledge about the site among students.
While several students said they were not aware of the Web site, not all had negative things to say about the information it contained.
Lucy Stark '10 was not aware of the site until asked about it by The Herald, but she praised it as well-organized and easy to use after accessing it.
"I appreciated the number of venues available on the site," Stark said. Still, Stark thinks the Web site should be more publicized.
"It's a great resource if people know about it," she said.
