Title IX Office holds events, offers resources for National Domestic Violence Awareness Month
October is National Domestic Violence Awareness Month, and the SUNY Geneseo Title IX Office is offering education on domestic violence and other forms of abuse throughout the month. The office is holding educational seminars and events to show support for victims of domestic abuse and offers resources to students experiencing abuse throughout the year.
On Oct. 14 from 12 p.m.–3 p.m., the second annual student-led Love Shouldn’t Hurt campaign was held outside of the Integrated Science Center. Students took a pledge against domestic violence, including committing to asking for consent, being an active bystander in domestic violence situations, and supporting survivors of abuse. Students marched on campus and painted words of support on the Painted Tree in the Sturges Quad. According to the Geneseo events calendar, a raffle for gift cards donated by local businesses raised money for the Willow Domestic Violence Center in Rochester, a local resource center for survivors of domestic abuse and violence.
Title IX Prevention Education Specialist Sophia Piazza said that the event was started by student interns in the office last year, and that well over one-hundred students participated and signed the pledge.
Piazza said, “This past year, our team of student interns initiated this campaign trying to decide what to do for like awareness for Sexual Assault Awareness Month back in April, and this is kind of what resulted was this campaign students are invited to take a pledge. The love shouldn’t hurt pledge…kind of goes, you know, pledging to be an active bystander, pledging to engage in healthy relationships to always ask for consent, just kind of getting students to think critically about… their behavior and how it affects others. We did a walk around campus with everyone in their purple shirts. And we ended at [the painted tree]. We spray painted it purple and students wrote messages of love and support for survivors of domestic violence and it was a really wholesome, really beautiful event.”
The Title IX Office is also holding a lunch and dialogue on domestic and dating violence on Oct. 28 in the Fireside Lounge in the MacVittie Student Union. Representatives from the Title IX Office will be there to introduce themselves to students and present some of the resources available to students experiencing domestic abuse. The event is open to students, faculty, and staff, and after introductions will open into an inclusive dialogue on problems faced by students and resources available to them. Piazza said that she hopes the event will make students more familiar with the staff of the office and make students feel much more comfortable coming to the office to utilize resources. A similar dialogue was held last Apr., and Piazza said that students seemed much more positive about the Title IX Office after being able to meet the members personally.
If students are experiencing domestic abuse or violence, the Title IX Office has several options available for students to utilize. According to Piazza, the office wants students to use these options to report their situation in a way that both feels comfortable to them and gets them the help that they need.
“If you file a Title IX incident report, it’s basically just opening the door for communication so that we can provide support and resources,” Piazza said. “Some of the options are reporting with the Title IX process through the college, but we can also help students report criminally. If they want to file an incident report and go the criminal route, we can assist them in getting in touch with the [Livingston County] DA or UPD so that they can handle the situation. We also have confidential resources that we really, really try to promote because I think that's a really good starting point for a lot of students.”
According to Piazza, the most notable of the confidential resources available to students are Restore Sexual Assault Services (Restore) and Chances and Changes (CAC). Both organizations are independent from the college and serve the larger community, but also have college liaisons that are present in the Title IX Office to serve students.
“Sometimes, the idea of reporting can be a little bit intimidating, which is understandable, so we have a bunch of people who are confidential that students can talk to. We have a college advocate [from Restore], her name is Sarah Link. She is really, really great. She can do free confidential counseling, and she can do referrals to outside mental health professionals. She can also serve as an advisor on any Title IX investigations or any criminal conduct proceedings if a student feels like they need advice. [Sarah Link] is just there to be an advocate for them, being someone in their corner with emotional support, someone to guide them through all of those really scary processes,” said Piazza. “We also have a representative from Chances and Changes, which is a very similar organization. [CAC is] more centered in domestic violence, Restore usually focuses on sexual assault, but both can help with either. We have another college advocate, her name’s Debra Schild, and she's really great and can do a lot of the same stuff that Sarah does. She does one-on-one counseling, serves as an advisor through Title IX or criminal conduct processes, and she recently started a support group on our campus for domestic violence and sexual assault-related experiences. They both are really, really good resources for students know about because they’re a good starting point. They’re totally confidential and they have no obligation to report to the college. That’s definitely something that we’ve been trying to convey to students, that reporting to Title IX is just opening that door for all of the options. They have so many different things that they can elect to do or not elect to do, and they have the choice to decline any kind of reporting measures or supportive measures at all.”
Piazza said that she hopes students are aware of all the options available to them and the freedom they have in choosing how to handle their situation.
“Students who are experiencing behaviors like this have options, and they’re in full control of the decisions that they make,” she said. “They’re never going to be pressured or encouraged to pursue you know, a criminal or academic conduct. They’re all there, completely in the driver’s seat for all of those decisions. We really try to give that autonomy back to students who have been harmed or affected by any kind of sexual harassment or any of those behaviors, so they feel safe and supported when they’re coming to the Title IX Office. We’re trying to make sure students know that they’re not signing up for something that seems really intimidating or scary or a huge significant investigation. It’s a starting point for healing, for support, for safety, and for resources that they might need.”
Students can find all of the aforementioned resources offered by the Title IX Office on the Geneseo website or by stopping by the Title IX Office in Doty Hall room 303.
