By Stephanie Menders | Managing Editor
A group of students will be hosting a panel discussion on consent and sexual assault on Wednesday, November 16 at 7 P.M. in McKillop Library. The panel will feature three guest speakers: Morgan Rayner, Area Coordinator at Salve Regina University who is trained in Title IX, Dr. Anthony LoPresti, professor in the Religious and Theological Studies department who teaches on sexual ethics, and Maureen Philbin, Director of Advocacy at Day One, a sexual assault and trauma center based in Providence.
The event is organized by Marrissa Ballard ’17, Lyndsay Rinere ’17, Catherine Kierce ’18, Emily Turiano ’18, Madeleine Key ’19, and Finn Collins ’20. The students were prompted to hold a panel as part of their Introduction to Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies course taught by Dr. Donna Harrington-Lueker. The topic of the panel was theirs to choose.
Ballard says that the group decided to devote a panel to sexual assault and consent after Brock Turner, who was sentenced to six months in prison for sexual assault, served only three months. “After hearing about Brock Turner’s case this summer and feeling angry about the results, we knew that it was so important to bring this conversation to Salve,” says Ballard. “It’s clear that it is still a pervasive issue, and that the added element of consent does not receive nearly enough attention.”
Ballard also says that discussions of this nature are crucial on every college campus, and that Salve is no exception. Ballard says that it is easy for students to feel like sexual assault does not happen on this campus because people don’t talk about it. “At Salve, many of us often feel the issue is somewhat swept under the rug,” says Ballard. “We also feel that we need a lot more education here on this subject, particularly as a Mercy school with the concerns of nonviolence and women.”
Salve has been criticized in the past for it’s handling of sexual assault on campus. In April of 2016, Mosaic published an article on anonymous group, “Sisterhood”‘s email blast. The group, consisting of male and female students, emailed 120 full-time professors demanding that the university hire a full-time, on-campus, trained sexual assault advocate, and for the week’s classes to be devoted to teaching issues regarding nonviolence and women. The group had formed after the handling of a sexual assault on campus.
“[The Sisterhood] shows that [the panel] is important at Salve, especially since this conversation was started last year,” says Ballard. “We want to inspire people to keep the conversation going.” A Facebook page for the event can be found here.
UPDATE: This article has been edited to clarify a quotation.
