Leaning Report Progress Assessed

One year after sweeping changes in the College’s system of sexual assault education and response, a newly created office has organized 82 educational events and assisted 48 students with concerns about sexual assault, according to a progress report given at the Faculty meeting Tuesday.

The report outlines the implementation of the Committee to Address Sexual Assault at Harvard’s (CASAH) findings, including the creation the Office of Sexual Assault Prevention and Response (OSAPR) and the use of a single fact-finder to assist in Administrative Board investigations of sexual assault.

OSAPR has assisted 39 undergraduates with concerns about sexual assault, sexual harassment or relationship abuse, and has had an average of 4.2 contacts per undergraduate between when it was created in July 2003 and the end of March 2004, according to the office’s utilization statistics.

Of these 39 students, the report said 18 utilized the OSAPR for concerns about a sexual assault that occurred in the last three months, seven for sexual assaults in the last two years and five for sexual harassment by a professor, University officer or a person in the workplace. Others who have used the office’s resources include four for a childhood or adolescent abuse experience and five for physically or emotionally abusive relationships, according to the statistics.

OSAPR officials have also consulted 92 times with individuals, such as proctors, tutors and University Health Services (UHS) clinicians, who have been in contact with students dealing with sexual assault.

CASAH, chaired by Professor of International Health at the School of Public Health Jennifer Leaning ’68 who also presented the report Tuesday, stated in its April 2003 report that students needed better coordinated and more easily accessible services, recommending the creation of the single, central OSAPR as one remedy.

“I believe we have made excellent progress this year in accomplishing the steps laid out in the 2003 committee report, and think we have had the full support of the College and Faculty in doing so,” Leaning wrote in an e-mail. “The amount of work done by the Office of Sexual Assault Prevention and Response has been prodigious.”

OSAPR has also been a “springboard” in promoting cooperation between student groups concerned with sexual violence and the administration, said Coalition Against Sexual Violence member Sarah B. Levit-Shore ’04.

“The office cares a lot about these issues and about involving students in decision making,” Levit-Shore said.

By providing 24-hour services and guaranteeing professional, individualized help in navigating the school’s resources, the centralized office has made a “critical difference” on campus, Levit-Shore said.

“There was a lot of negative feeling about the education and resources that existed for students on campus, and OSAPR’s presence has had a very positive effect on proactively changing this feeling,” Levit-Shore said.

The Leaning Committee convened after student and faculty outcry over a change to the College’s sexual assault policy that mandated the need for corroborating evidence before the Ad Board could investigate complaints.

CASAH also identified the need for greater use of an independent researcher to gather unbiased information for cases of sexual violence brought to the Ad Board—a policy which has been utilized this year.

“We have used fact finders in all cases of peer on peer violence that have come before the Ad Board this year,” Dean of the College Benedict H. Gross ’71 wrote in an e-mail. “The number of such cases is not large, but in each case I feel that the process served us well.”

The Ad Board also now holds formal “debriefing” sessions after the completion of cases to consider processes used to deal with the incidents and how they can be improved.

Levit-Shore said that the Ad Board process still needs further scrutiny, noting the involvement of senior tutors when victims of sexual assault bring their cases before the Ad Board.

“The disciplinary portion is the piece that the Leaning Committee had the least ability to make changes on, and its certainly one of the most difficult pieces of the system,” Levit-Shore said. “It’s the piece that still really needs to be rigorously reviewed and fixed.”

OSAPR has realized many of the Leaning Committee final report’s priority recommendations. It has established a UHS Mental Health Service “sexual assault team,” provided access to counseling for victims within 24 hours in 100 percent of situations, offered round-the-clock on-call support for 97 percent of days this year and conducted annual training for residential staff, Ad Board members and UHS clinicians.

OSAPR has yet to formally establish a system by which students can register feedback about its services.

The report stated that a standard feedback mechanism for services at OSAPR, UHS and the Bureau of Study Counsel (BSC) will be implemented in fall 2004.

“There isn’t an obvious or easy way to gather feedback from students anonymously,” OSAPR Director Susan B. Marine wrote in an e-mail. “It’s also unfair to ask survivors of sexual assault and rape to spend their time giving feedback about an office when they may wish to devote their time to their healing and other processes.”

Marine added that the office is considering the use of a secure website or anonymous forms to solicit feedback in the future.

MOVING FORWARD

The recent progress report identified OSAPR’s coordination with graduate students and schools as one major area for further expansion.

Six graduate schools have approached OSAPR seeking its involvement in training and outreach, and nine graduate students have sought help “in the context of very limited outreach on the part of the Office,” the report stated.

“The need and demand for survivor support services and technical assistance in the form of training and outreach is very real yet it remains to be decided how these issues can be addressed effectively given the current single funding source for the Office,” the report stated.

OSAPR is funded by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS), and currently concentrates its efforts on the College, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and the Division of Continuing Education, Marine wrote.

“We would not turn any graduate student away who needs help—and never would,” Marine wrote. “The future will help us determine if we can do more extensive outreach to the other graduate and professional schools. Right now we are quite busy with FAS.”

OSAPR, collaborating with researchers from the School of Public Health, is also surveying first-years three times to measure the effectiveness of its new programs, which aim to increase awareness of sexual assault resources on campus.

NEW EDUCATION

Education and training of FAS students and staff has been the focus of OSAPR in its first year, Gross wrote.

OSAPR is ahead of schedule in the implementation of education programs for first-years, sophomores and leadership groups. It has met the goal of instituting first-year educational events—including one required evening event during Freshman Week and a series of small-group discussions—for fall 2003.

The office has also already held three events for student groups that were originally projected for fall 2004. It will commence an education program for sophomores entering the House system in fall 2004, in line with the 2003 report’s phased approach.

Marine said that she spends half of her time providing direct service to individuals and that the office’s two other employees, education specialist Heather Wilson and prevention specialist Juan Carlos Arean spend 90 percent and 100 percent of their time, respectively, working on education and outreach programs.

OSAPR has hosted 15 training sessions for College officers and clinicians over the past year, in addition to organizing educational events for first-years, leadership groups and upperclass students.

—Staff writer Katharine A, Kaplan can be reached at kkaplan@fas.harvard.edu.