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The student voice of the Ohio State University
Tuesday, April 3, 2018
thelantern.com
@TheLantern
Year 138, Issue No. 21
Ohio State’s Sexual Civility Empowerment under review Pause in assault services leave students searching for alternative support SUMMER CARTWRIGHT Campus Editor cartwright.117@osu.edu SAM RAUDINS Lantern reporter raudins.3@osu.edu An Ohio State office that supports survivors of sexual assault is undergoing a review that has halted its services and spread the counseling to other entities. But this act is leaving many — females, in particular — wondering why the university paused the office altogether, and when it will return. Ohio State’s Sexual Civility and Empowerment, an entity of the Office of Student Life, was initially put under review about six weeks ago, according to multiple students who worked within the office as advocates and support staff. The office runs sexual assault prevention programming such as “Buck-I-Care About Consent” and provides support resources to survivors. These re-
RIS TWIGG | ASSISTANT PHOTO EDITOR
Staff members at the Sexual Civility and Empowerment office have been temporarily relocated during the review to another Lincoln Tower floor and the Wellness Center in the RPAC. sources include counseling, reporting and student conduct-related services. SCE and Title IX faculty were asked to comment for this story, but referred to a university statement that did not include specifics on the date the review began. The university said in the
statement that other offices and services such as Sexual Assault Response Network of Central Ohio (SARNCO), a rape crisis intervention program in Columbus, and Counseling and Consultation Service are working to provide care for any students who contact SCE during the review.However,
there are two major worries this referral is causing for students: police involvement and inadequate help. Some students wrongly view SCE as the only place to go for help without police involvement. In fact, SCE is legally obligated to report assaults to police — as
is any organization alerted to felonious activity — but it does so through identifying survivors and assaulters as names like Jane and John Doe. Other services such as the Title IX office on campus do the same if survivors do not want police involvement, said Rachel LaPointe, a former member of the university’s sexual violence committee who has worked with Title IX, SARNCO and SCE. This is done because Ohio law mandates that sexual assault must be reported to the police. Additionally, LaPointe, a thirdyear in international studies, said SARNCO does not report the facts of the assault at all if the survivor does not want police involvement. Another worry for students is CCS involvement in wake of the SCE review. The entity might not have people trained in helping sexual assault survivors or be trained in using language appropriate to the sensitive situation
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Ohio State’s shrinking share of low-income students ERIN GOTTSACKER Patricia B. Miller Special Projects Editor gottsacker.2@osu.edu Jennifer Prewitt always knew she wanted to go to college, but didn’t know how she would afford it with the rising cost of higher education. Money was scarce since Prewitt was 6 years old, from the day her mother, Cheryl Prewitt, left her abusive husband. Since then, Jennifer Prewitt watched her mother work at McDonald’s, own a restaurant, file for bankruptcy and package meat at a local Kroger. Though she dreamed of attending college, Cheryl Prewitt never continued her education, but wanted her daughter to have every opportunity to do so. “My mom was always pushing me so that I could have this great future — or at least go to school,” Prewitt said. But faced with the steep price tag of college tuition, her plan to earn a bachelor’s de-
gree seemed just out of reach. A $5,000 Pell grant changed that. Need-based federal aid for low-income undergraduate students, Pell grants make higher education possible for those who might otherwise not be able to afford the cost. “[The Pell grant] has basically given me the opportunity to pursue my passion,” said Prewitt, a third-year in natural resource management who dreams of becoming a park ranger out West. “Without it, I definitely would not be [at Ohio State] and probably not in school at all.” Nearly one-quarter of Ohio State’s undergraduate student population depends on Pell grants to cut the cost of their education. That’s roughly 12,500 students across the university’s six campuses, according to data from the U.S. Department of Education. But the number of undergraduate students receiving Pell grants at Ohio State has steadily declined since 2010, The Lantern’s
JACK WESTERHEIDE | PHOTO EDITOR
Jennifer Prewitt, a third-year in natural resource management, said she is only able to attend college because of the Pell grant. analysis of this data found. About 2,500 fewer Pell-eligible students were enrolled on Ohio State campuses in 2015, the most recent year data was available, than just six years earlier. The same downward trend has occurred at nearly all Big Ten universities. Though Ohio State enrolls a larger percentage of Pell recip-
ients than most other Big Ten schools, it also saw the biggest decrease in the share of Pell grant recipients between 2010 and 2015, with a faster rate of decline than all but two other Big Ten universities. “Five years ago, Ohio State probably would have been considered one of the leading public, highly selective universities in
terms of its commitment to serving low-income students, based on its financial Pell undergraduates,” said Jamey Rorison, the director of policy research at the Institute for Higher Education Policy. “That’s really not the case anymore.” The decline in the share of students receiving Pell grants is the result of a variety of factors. Many colleges, Rorison said, cite gaps in the academic performance of low- and high-income students as well as cuts in state funding for higher education. Rorison said shrinking numbers of Pell grant recipients not only reduce the economic diversity of public institutions like Ohio State, but they also contribute to the widening of a societal gap between the rich and poor. Ohio State is outspoken about its efforts to increase “access, affordability and excellence.” It participates in national initiatives to improve opportunities for low-income students to pursue PELL GRANT CONTINUES ON 2