Raising awareness around campus

Women’s Resource Center staff speaks about Sexual Assault Awareness Month

By Katie Bresnahan

“[Sexual Assault Awareness month is] basically a month every year to raise consciousness on violence against women,” said Dr. Juli Parker, Director of the UMass Dartmouth Women’s Resource Center.

Parker explained that the purpose of Sexual Assault Awareness Month is to focus on educating women and preventing sexual assaults on college campuses. To do this, the Women’s Resource Center is focusing on the twenty-fifth anniversary of “the Big Dan Rape,” which took place at Big Dan’s, a New Bedford Bar. On Tuesday and Wednesday this week, they showed the movie The Accused, which tells the story of the Big Dan rape victim.

At the end of the month the Women’s Center will host a kick ball tournament along with the UMD Peer Health Educators. This event will raise money and awareness of sexual assault. They will also host a speaker who will talk about the Big Dan incident and bystander intervention and “how important it is, as community members, to intervene if you see something happening,” said Parker.

Sherrie André, a sophomore women’s studies major who works as the Women’s Rights Advocate at the Women’s Center added that they will table for Denim Day on April 15. On Denim Day, she explained, people wear jeans to remember a girl who was raped in Italy by her driving instructor. He claimed that her jeans were too tight for him to get them off himself so she had to help him. Because of this, he claimed it was not rape and he got away with the crime.

“We’re asking everyone to wear jeans that day in solidarity with other women and rape victims and people who are working to help end sexual assault,” added Parker.

André, who is also a part of the UMD Feminist Majority Leadership Association, added that the FMLA will be doing a passive marketing campaign. They will hang posters with statistics and women’s faces. They will say things like, “This could be your mother” and “This could be your sister.”

“One in four women are raped, and instead of just saying one in four, [we are] going to put faces on it in hoping that people will see that it could be anyone,” explained André.

Parker advises women, especially students, to be very clear on their personal boundaries. She says they should know how far they are willing to go with a man, especially when they are drinking. They should also know how much they have had to drink. “Before you go out with somebody, know how far you are willing to go, so that you’re always checking yourself and being truthful to what you want,” said Parker.

André reminds students to act sympathetic if rape victims approach them. Let them talk and do not be angry. Also, persons approached by rape victims should not act like they know what the victim is going through, because she explained, they do not. She also advises students to listen and not try to give advice.

To protect themselves from sexual assault, Parker recommends that women “be in touch with the buddy system. If you go to a party with a group of friends, you make agreements that you’re going to leave together.” Parker and André recommend dating and not just hooking-up, walking with keys between the knuckles, taking different routes when driving home and not putting whereabouts in an away message or on Facebook.

Both Parker and André advocate women learning to defend themselves. “I think that taking a self-defense class, especially taking RAD on campus, really helps build your self-esteem so that you tend to walk with confidence, you tend to do more things with confidence and you’re less likely to be a target if you look really confident,” said Parker. She added that self-defense causes women to be more aware of their surroundings.

“We really need men to be a part of this. Men need to be equally outraged about sexual assault and violence against women as women are,” stated Parker. She also offered advice for men. First, Parker advised men not to have sex with drunk women. She also said, “Men need to hold each other accountable. They need to be better about supporting each other to be good men. I think we’d be in a better position if men were more apt to do that.”

Parker also brought up the use of sexual assault hotlines and websites. The first of these sights was Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network (RAINN) which can be found at www.rainn.org. There is also an anonymous tracking form for sexual assaults at the Women’s Resource Center website. The purpose of this site is to get on-campus assault statistics without people having to report their assaults to Public Safety. This form can be found at http://www.umassd.edu/publicsafety/sexualassaultform/sexualassaultanonymousreport.cfm.

Students join fight against hunger

NORTH DARTMOUTH, Mass. — Many assistance agencies in the Fall River and New Bedford area are finding it difficult to meet the needs of people when it comes to hunger.

Shelves are stocked during the Thanksgiving and Christmas seasons but come spring many food pantries and soup kitchens suffer from dwindling supplies, while the need remains the same.

Students involved in MassPIRG’s Hunger and Homelessness group decided to swing into action. “I want to do my part to give back to my community,” stated the Hunger and Homelessness Coordinator, Tho Pham.

In order to help meet the needs of those in hunger, members of MassPIRG and Iota Delta Nu Sorority participated in the Hunger Clean Up on Saturday, April 5. The Hunger Cleanup is a one-day service-a-thon, where students volunteer in the community and are also sponsored by friends and family.

This year, UMass Dartmouth volunteers helped out at the Dartmouth community farm. The Dartmouth farm is part of a project called “Sharing the Harvest,” a collaboration between the YMCA Southcoast and the United Way of Greater New Bedford.

Derek Christianson, one of the project’s coordinators, said the farm is hoping to produce 15,000 pounds of fresh produce, all of which will be donated to area food pantries, soup kitchens and other emergency feeding programs.

The Hunger Clean Up participants raised over $800 through a variety of fundraisers, including a Spare Change Drive and the Hoops for Hunger basketball tournament.

Half of the money raised will go to the United Way of Greater New Bedford to buy food for local shelters and soup kitchens.

The other half will be pooled together with other universities across the country to support a national staff of homelessness policy experts. It will also go toward international organizations that will use the money to buy a year’s supply of emergency medical supplies and food for 30,000 refugees in Darfur, Sudan, and provide educational support for hundreds of at-risk girls in Zimbabwe.

Amanda Rollins, who helped organize the Hunger Clean Up said, “Students have the capacity to truly make a difference and that is what we are trying to do.”

Meet the people behind the badges

By Stephanie Luz

On Tuesday, April 8, the Frederick Douglas Unity House held an event called “The Person Behind the Badge” - the last event of the three-part series titled “Public Safety Forum: Building Relationships and Breaking Down Barriers.”

Officers Lisa Cabral, Damon Gomes and Sergeant John Sousa talked about their lives before working at UMass Dartmouth’s Public Safety headquarters. Each had very different backgrounds and experiences. The officers hope that sharing personal experiences will create a better community.

Officer Cabral explained her life before becoming a police officer, “I came from a strict Portuguese family… my curfew was eleven o’clock.” Cabral explained that her heritage has proved difficult in her development as a policewoman. She said, “At my age, I am already supposed to be married and have children,” according to the traditional values of her parents. Cabral said the challenge of breaking the stereotype has pushed her along in the career instead of inhibiting it.

A soldier in the United States Army for eight years, Officer Gomes has finally found his place at UMass Dartmouth. “I could have done a lot of other things besides working here but I like it here. I see a lot of familiar faces whenever I walk around campus; I like being on campus… I like to see the student body grow from freshmen… to seniors.” Gomes took the rank of Sergeant and was stationed at different parts of the world such as Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq.

Sergeant John Souza has been part of UMass Dartmouth Public Safety since 1998. Souza was born and raised in New Bedford, graduated New Bedford High School in 1984, and attended Bridgewater State College with a major in Marketing. Souza had a wide range of occupations throughout his lifetime ranging from a “million dollar salesmen” to fishermen.

Souza talked about the S.L.A.M. program, which stands for Student Learning a Message. “I’m hoping that after twenty-five years of doing this that someone will have heard the message… The message is very clear: you abuse alcohol, [or] you abuse drugs, it’s going to ruin your dreams.”

The Public Safety officers are hoping to continue these student outreach programs. The Frederick Unity House is just one of the many programs and activities that officers are using to create connections with the campus community. Souza said “Working closely with the students, getting to know people, creating unity” is one of the greatest positive experiences he has had at UMass Dartmouth.