Around Tappan Square
STUDENT LIFE
Oberlin’s Consent Campaign: It’s Not Always About Sex sometimes it seems like the work that comes out of Oberlin’s Office of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion is only about sex. Rebecca Mosely, director of the office and Oberlin’s Title IX coordinator, is the first to say that it’s hard to talk about sex, but the matter of consent isn’t just sexual. A year ago, Mosely’s office launched Oberlin’s first consent awareness campaign. The slogan, “Let’s Make Consent a Conversation,” has a multitude of meanings: make consent a conversation with yourself; a conversation with a partner; or even a conversation at home with your parents. Although a majority of students were aware of the college’s sexual misconduct policy, just as many still had questions about how to practice clear consent. “At home before college, if you wanted to avoid a person or not hang out with them, you just went home. Here, you’re living, dining, and going to classes with them,’’ Mosely says. “Really understanding how to ask for and gain consent in a relationship is more important than it has ever been in students’ lives.” In spring 2017, Mosely and Suzanne Denneen, program coordinator in the Office of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion, attended a training workshop offered by the Ohio Alliance to End Sexualized Violence, a statewide anti-sexual violence coalition. With the training came an opportunity to receive grant funding for a consent awareness campaign. “Oberlin had spent years working on other best practices, such as creating solid education for our students, editing our sexual misconduct policy, and conducting climate surveys to gauge student experiences, behaviors, and perceptions. To me, consent awareness was the natural next step,” Mosely says. She and Denneen were awarded a $10,000 grant to make it happen. Oberlin’s peer education program, Preventing and Responding to Sexual Misconduct (PRSM), trains students on the essentials of both consent and Oberlin’s sexual misconduct policy. All first-year and transfer students are required to attend two PRSM-led training sessions their first year, which cover 6
the basics of consent as well as bystander intervention—educating people on how to intervene when there is potential harm. Student PRSM trainers were using the slogan “Make Consent a Conversation,” but it hadn’t gained much traction. Mosely’s office conducted a focus group in summer 2017 to gauge students’ interest in a campaign and collect more information about issues surrounding consent on campus. “We were hearing that some students didn’t really know how to talk to each other about sex,” Denneen says. Armed with that information, they worked with Oberlin’s Office of Communications to create a brochure that was mailed to all students, as well as posters, stickers, pins, and a series of animated videos that model real-life coversations about sexual consent. They also sent a letter to parents of first-year students asking them to talk with their students about the brochure. Denneen says feedback was positive. The brochure even made headlines: a comic illustration about the brochure by Oberlin parent Beth Wolfensberger Singer in the Boston Globe was a point of pride for everyone who worked on the campaign. “One of the things we’ve come to appreciate about the campaign is being able to show how this kind of communication and consent practice isn’t just related to sexual interactions.
It’s relevant to all of our interactions with one another,” Mosely says. Student reactions have been overwhelmingly positive. Said an anonymous student, “I was really glad this was something [Oberlin] was talking about even before students arrived. It was affirming in regards to me picking Oberlin.” Another student remarked, “I was relieved that it would be a mandatory conversation.” PRSM trainer and senior Kira Findling believes the campaign plays a large part in promoting healthy relationships on campus. “What I love about this campaign is rather than focusing on what we shouldn’t do, it talks about what we can do to be kind and caring to one another on campus and beyond,” says Findling, a cinema studies and comparative American studies major. PRSM continues to create and present workshops about different aspects of consent, including Consent Month in April, observed nationally as Sexual Assault Awareness Month. “I feel really proud to be a PRSM trainer and to be involved in this work,” Findling says. “The ‘Let’s Make Consent a Conversation’ posters are all around campus, so people are constantly seeing them and thinking about how to bring consent into their everyday lives. I think the next step is not letting these conversations end.” Watch the consent videos and read the brochure at go.oberlin.edu/consent.
PRE V I O US SPRE A D : PA NG FEI CHI A NG ’19 ; T HIS PAGE : ILLUS T R AT I ON BY MJ R OB INS ON ’14
BY AMANDA NAGY