The University of Delaware has released results from its first sexual misconduct survey of undergraduates on campus. The data is somewhat inconclusive -- but still shows many incidents and few reports.
In a year that's been focused on educating students about campus rape culture, advocates say the survey shows there's plenty more to be done. Delaware Public Media's Annie Ropeik spoke with UD's Title IX coordinator Sue Groff to dig into the results and learn more.
"We know our students don't understand our policy, or our process, and they don't understand what it means to report, and where that information and how that information is being shared, and what happens to that information," she says. "So we're trying to focus more of our efforts this year into next year on our educational awareness efforts."
Those efforts are targeting new students in particular -- and the policies are in their infancy. Groff says their new investigator model for pursuing sexual misconduct reports has already gotten some use this year, even though only 5 percent of students taking the survey said they reported whatever had happened to them to the university.
On the other hand, Groff says she was particularly pleased with the survey section about bystander awareness, where students take action to keep peers and friends safe, particularly while they're intoxicated. She says they haven't even finished rolling out their new bystander education program.
"We've had bystander intervention training in the past, but with this program we hope to integrate it more into the culture," she says, by building it into the freshman curriculum.
Down the line, they're hoping to make the survey part of a broader look at campus climate, in an effort to get a wider range of undergraduates to participate -- only 14 percent did this year. Groff says the survey might occur every other year in future.
