Student Services Departments To Observe Sexual Assault Awareness Month

Managing Editor

   The University of Arkansas-Monticello Departments of Public Safety, Student Health, and Counseling, Testing and Career Services will observe National Sexual Assault Awareness Month April 18-29.

   Campus patrol cars will bear teal ribbons to show support for sexual assault victims and to draw attention to an issue of particular concern to students and their parents as well as officials on campuses across the country.

   In addition, Pine Bluff native and Harvard Law School graduate Mary Anne Franks, associate professor at the University of Miami Law School, will speak on “Myths and Realities About Sexual Assault” April 25.  

   Franks served as a Sexual Assault/Sexual Harassment advisor at Harvard and created a handbook about gender-based violence for global advocacy group Physicians for Human Rights.

   “She’s one smart lady,” John Kidwell, director of the Office of Public Safety, said of Franks, adding that he encouraged everyone to attend. “The whole football team is going to be there.”

   According to rainn.org, the website for the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network, 60 percent of sexual assaults go unreported; when considering reported and unreported incidents, only one out of 16 attackers will be jailed for their crimes.

   The goal then, for potential victims and their advocates, is to target the problem before it occurs. Awareness, information about what is appropriate and inappropriate behavior and other educational tools, advocates hope, will help address the problem.

   According to the 2010 Annual Security Report/Fire Safety Report published last October, only one on-campus forcible sexual offense was reported at UAM in 2007 as well as one in 2009.

   Franks’ “Myths and Realities About Sexual Assault” will be held April 25 at 7 p.m. in the UAM Indoor Practice Facility Room 107. For more information contact the Public Safety office at 460-1083.

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