Students meet to discuss lodge culture on campus
By Avery Shackelford | March 27, 2013Two professors hosted a forum Tuesday evening in Dennis Hall for students to discuss their desire to have more open conversations about sexual assault, gender dichotomies and social life on campus. Political science professor Monti Datta and Spanish professor Carlos Valencia decided to host the forum after discussing the issue with Richmond College Associate Dean Patrick Benner because of the number of sexual assaults reported on campus, Datta said. About 15 students, mostly women, attended the forum in the first-year, male residence hall where Datta lives. Datta said he believed the lack of men present at the forum had to do in part with the subject matter, which could be uncomfortable or scary to talk about. The conversation began with a focus on the culture of the lodges but shifted toward a discussion about rape and sexual assault on campus. Some women at the forum said they thought there was a culture of blaming the victim on campus, which Datta said was the most shocking part of the discussion for him. "It's heartbreaking that there is a common expectation about a woman crying wolf," he said. Between 2 and 8 percent of reported sexual assaults are false, according to the National Center for the Prosecution of the Violence Against Women. Students discussed the difficulty in understanding the gray area between consent and sexual assault. "We need to find a way to make consent sexy," said Christine Parker, a student at the forum. The students agreed that to help people understand the definition of sexual assault, it was necessary that men and women have conversations on the topic together, even if the university mandated those discussions. "This is an issue that everyone is involved in and everyone is affected by," Parker said.
