The White Ribbon Campaign, Clothesline Project, and Take Back the Night are student-initiated campaigns on campus with one mission: spread awareness of sexual and domestic violence.
The Title IX office is behind each of these initiatives, and devotes their work to helping spread awareness and offer support to survivors.
Maryrose Anthes is the director of compliance and Title IX/Section 504 and offers resources on campus for individuals in need of help.
The office is responsible for intervening in Title IX cases as well as training students on campus to be prepared to help in harmful situations.
“I think the hardest thing is making sure that students know about the Title IX office, and know about the different resources that are available both on and off campus,” Anthes said. “I feel like I’m a broken record talking about our different resources like [confidential resource advisors (CRAs)] and health services and counseling, and then every week I meet a student who isn’t aware…”
Anthes said individuals who find themselves in a harmful situation have different options such as speaking with one of the CRAs who are trained to speak with people who are not yet ready to move forward with a formal TItle IX case.
“I think it’s important for them to know that…they’re empowered to make the decision that’s right for them given what happened,” Anthes said.
Additionally, Anthes said Title IX also devotes time to train athletes and Resident Assistants (RA). Each year, these groups of students are trained to recognize dangerous situations and know the resources available to survivors in order to help them get the help they need.
“We do have a lot of focus on how do we make sure that our students are ready to be bystanders, ready to receive disclosures, that everybody knows where to come for support around these issues,” Anthes said.
Senior and Title IX intern Johanna Snyder said she thinks it’s important for student leaders such as RAs and athletes to get involved in supporting victims as much as possible because of the impact that they have as a large portion of the student population.
“It’s really important for student athletes and RAs to get involved so that other people in our community know that they’re willing to advocate for them if something did occur,” Snyder said.
Anthes also said it is important for students to get involved in showing support for survivors, and that people can do this by attending the events hosted by the Title IX office throughout the year.
Senior and Title IX intern Sophie Lewis said these events are important to creating awareness in the community. Through these events, Lewis said she hopes people become more aware of how common these incidents can be, and how to be supportive to survivors.
“It really is normalized…And the stigma against people coming out with stories like this and it's just like…the whole victim blaming, not believing and stuff. It's just, it's something that I really hope that we, you know, can move forward in as a society as a whole,” Lewis said. “I want people to know that this is like, this is a big thing and it's not just something to be swept under the rug. It doesn't just happen to one person on campus. Like it, it is a big thing, more than I think people know.”
For students who are looking to get more involved, Anthes said she is also seeking student interns with an interest in helping survivors.
“It would be great to have people with different interests coming into the internships because everybody brings their talents to the table and we work together to really get the message out there,” Anthes said.
Snyder said being a Title IX intern has taught her a lot, and she encourages other students looking to get involved to consider the internship.
“I would totally recommend this internship to anyone who wants to get involved in any type of awareness or just is looking to get involved in campus a little bit more, even if they’re just volunteering at the events to see if this is an internship they could possibly be interested in,” Snyder said.