Boston University is launching a climate survey of campus sexual misconduct Friday to learn more about misconduct on campus.
Maureen Mahoney, director of the Sexual Assault and Prevention Center on campus, said BU will be one of 33 universities utilizing a survey on sexual assault and misconduct developed by the Association of American Universities.
“[BU President Robert Brown] decided, based on how many other schools in AAU use it, that it would be a good one to use to gauge the climate of the university,” Mahoney said.
BU first sent out a sexual misconduct climate survey in 2015 after a task force convened by Brown developed the survey. This is the first year the survey will come from the AAU, which Mahoney said will help with benchmarking BU’s prevention programming and services alongside those of other schools.
The survey going out to BU students will include questions specific to BU students and the BU campus, Mahoney said. From the survey, she said she hopes more students will become aware of sexual misconduct resources on campus.
“Because our office was pretty new in 2015, I’m hoping that more students will identify us as a resource and understand that we help students who’ve experienced any type of gender-based violence,” she said. “Hopefully students will really understand what we do, that we provide advocacy as well as therapy.”
The survey will be open to students until March 2, Mahoney said. Until then, SARP will be working to promote the survey to encourage more students to take it.
One of the ways SARP is promoting the survey is through a social media campaign with the hashtag “#BeHeardBU.” Starting Friday, SARP will be encouraging students to come to the SARP office to take a photo to promote the campaign.
“There will be white boards that have the hashtag already on them, and then students can write why they think a climate survey is important for the university,” she said. “We’ve hired a fantastic photojournalist to take pictures of students for them to use on their own social media. That’s proven very successful in the past.”
Abby Smith, a freshman in the College of General Studies, said she thinks the survey will be good for student safety overall.
“It would be good because the university could learn more,” she said. “We’re also not just a college but a city, so especially in today’s age prevention is important.”
William Bauman, a junior in the College of Communication, said that although he didn’t have any problems with the survey, he felt it might be obsolete given BU makes its students undergo sexual assault training at the start of the school year.
“I guess it’s important to make sure that students know that it’s there to make them feel safe,” he said. “It’s fine, but I don’t know if it’s going to serve the purpose they want. I guess at this point it’s kind of unnecessary because they already have that video walkthrough thing.”
Vanessa Krytusa, a sophomore in Questrom School of Business, said that although she hasn’t personally experienced any sexual misconduct on campus, she believes in the importance of the survey.
“I know there are people that have experienced negative things,” she said. “I think that the survey will minimize it in the future. I think it’s good for any campus to have. Campuses that do have things like this are definitely safer than campuses who don’t.”
By Audrey Martin and Alex LaSalvia
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