Promoting Awareness, Victim Empowerment is dedicated to preventing sexual assault, dating violence and stalking on campus through education and activism. PAVE maintains that it is the university's responsibility to ensure that every student on campus has access to a quality education, including victims of sexual assault and dating violence. Thus, it is crucial that the university takes the issue of sexual violence seriously and does everything in its power to ensure victims' needs are met so that their education is not compromised. While PAVE believes that the university makes great efforts to be responsive to victims' needs, we also feel it is important for these efforts to be consistently and continually evaluated to ensure that students receive the utmost support on campus.
That said, victims of sexual assault experience serious long-term physiological and psychological effects, and each victim's experience is unique. PAVE strongly encourages victims to choose their own paths for recovery, and this may or may not involve reporting to authorities. Nonetheless, a victim's choice to report the assault is a significant one, and UW-Madison is lucky to have various resources offered to victims of sexual assault, both on campus and in the community, that are dedicated to helping victims in any way possible.
In light of recent articles published by National Public Radio and the Center for Public Integrity, PAVE would like to call attention to the resources offered by PAVE and other campus/community organizations; PAVE feels its partnership with these campus resources has been, and continues to be, beneficial to victims.
The Student Assistance and Judicial Affairs unit within the Offices of the Dean of Students provides access to the student disciplinary process and assists with safety planning, reporting options, academic concerns and other issues the victim may have. They also work closely with other campus/community resources such as the Rape Crisis Center, Meriter Hospital's Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner Program, University Health Services and University of Wisconsin Police Department. These resources work collaboratively to provide the services that best cater to each victim's individual needs.
Despite all well-intentioned efforts to meet the needs of victims, at times, as demonstrated in the CPI report, these services may not meet victims' needs or expectations. In these unfortunate instances, it is important to acknowledge victims' experiences and to utilize their feedback as a means to continually evaluate the effectiveness of current services. While there are challenges that need to be resolved to address sexual assaults, we, as a campus community, are ultimately responsible for preventing these crimes and for holding perpetrators accountable. PAVE and its campus partners will continue to work together to implement the most effective preventative and educational measures and to support victims on this campus.
Sapir Sasson is the media advocate for PAVE. This article was written as a collaboration of PAVE staff. If you have any questions, please contact uwpavechair@gmail.com or stop by the AVE office at the Student Activity Center, office #3147.
