Campus makes strides on sexual assault policies

Recently, SUNY announced a new four-point plan to reduce sexual violence on college campuses. This plan will work in conjunction with Binghamton’s already robust programs to prevent sexual violence and is just one of the many steps Binghamton has taken in recent months to develop comprehensive resources for students.

Working with students to launch the Violence, Abuse and Rape Crisis Center (VARCC), announced last week, is one of the major steps, as is adding and training counselors.

Anna Jantz, a member of the University’s CARE (Consultation, Advocacy, Referral and Education) Team, was appointed as a sexual assault advocate in fall 2020, and recently became a certificate advocate through the National Advocate Credentialing Program, after completing dozens of hours of training with the Office of Victims of Crime [part of the office of Justice Programs within the U.S. Department of Justice].

“The goal of the program is to standardize and professionalize the field of victim advocacy,” Jantz said. “Although the training covers other crimes, there is a lot of information on child abuse, sexual assault, domestic violence, stalking and dating violence.”

In addition to Jantz’s role, the University is starting a search to hire a new sexual violence counselor to work specifically with survivors of sexual assault. The counselor will be housed at the University Counseling Center (UCC), but will have experience and specialty knowledge and will interface closely with the VARCC.

The UCC has placed a strong focus on sexual violence training for its counselors, according to Mark Rice, clinical director of the center.

“Over the winter break, all staff have been doing professional development on a core training through PESI [a non-profit that provides continuing education services for mental health, rehab and healthcare professionals] that is probably the most widely used training site for mental health about sexual assault response,” Rice said. “Training includes best initial ways to assist the survivor as well as important considerations for the healing journey beyond just the initial visit(s).”

The UCC has also identified a cadre of counselors to have further training to deepen their skill set, Rice added. “This is common practice at the UCC. In addition to being generalists, our clinicians often have some specialty areas of interest,” he said. “With trauma work it helps to have multiple counselors sharing and supporting one another, so we have identified several possible trainings and are vetting them for the best option, timeline and funding.”

Training of UCC counselors is one aspect of improved support, but training students is also a priority and is being expanded and enhanced through the Health Promotion and Prevention Services (HPPS) office.

HPPS hired two full-time graduate students last fall to assist with student training, and directly reached about 3,000 students on topics including interpersonal violence prevention, bystander intervention, interpersonal violence/bystander intervention, student leader training and resources for victim disclosure, according to Kimberly Peabody, HPPS director.

“Audiences that participated in trainings included student leaders, UNIV 101 class participants, Greek life representatives, members of student professional and club organizations, residential assistants (RAs), the CDCI Dean’s team and incoming students,” she said.

The pandemic curtailed many of the usual HPPS outreach initiatives, but the office continues to reach out via social media with key messages.

In addition, liaisons to the VARCC will include Residential Life liaison Katy Perry, who will focus on education and prevention work. “There are significant opportunities for Residential Life to connect students with resources on campus, to provide outreach and to engage students in training and prevention activities,” said Paola Mignone, director of Residential Life.

And the Title IX Council, which has met about 15 times since late September, is also seeking out opportunities to learn. All Title IX Council members are enrolled in the SUNY Student Conduct Institute so they can seek additional online training and education.

Having experience working directly with survivors of sexual violence is critical to helping them heal, as is investigation of the circumstances of the assault. The University hired Amy Zieziula as deputy Title IX coordinator in January ꟷ a new position. She acts as an impartial party in conducting investigations, among other duties, and will have a strong presence at the VARCC. The University will reopen a search in March for an Affirmative Action Officer who will also assist with sexual assault investigations. Together, Zieziula and the Affirmative Action Officer will work with victims and survivors to identify perpetrators, bystanders and witnesses so that the prosecution and disciplinary sanctions against the perpetrator are executed quickly and to the fullest extent of the University’s Code of Student Conduct.

The University last fall developed an anonymous online reporting site (https://binghamton.edu/police/sexual-assault-anonymous-report.html) where individuals can report a case of sexual assault. The site protects the identity of the reporting individual, and reports are followed up on as appropriate. “We are required by law to seek consent from a reporting individual before conducting an investigation and the victim determines next steps throughout the Title IX process, including whether they want an investigation or not,” said Zieziula. “In many cases, the reporting individual does not want an investigation, but by receiving the report, we are able to offer supportive outreach from our sexual assault advocate and the individual can access all of our other support systems.

“In addition, whether an investigation moves forward or not, we are able to use the report to inform what we do as a campus in terms of training and education,” Zieziula added. “All reports are meaningful to us.”

And, if an investigation does move forward, the University is required to follow the Title IX Grievance Policy that was adopted in August 2020, that spells out how the University must respond to reports of misconduct falling within the policy’s definition of sexual harassment and must follow a grievance process to comply with the law in these cases before issuing a disciplinary sanction against a person accused of sexual harassment. Similarly, all services afforded to victims via the VARCC are provided to respondents via the CARE Team in the Dean of Students Office. The complete policy can be found online.

Finally, the University will participate in the SUNY-wide Sexual Assault and Prevention Survey every other year in the second half of the spring semester, and will conduct its own survey on alternating years through its Office of Institutional Research and Assessment. The SUNY-wide survey is currently underway.