University Affairs Committee met Tuesday to hear from a University Health Services representative about the Tonight program.
The program, endorsed by End Violence on Campus and UHS, is designed to educate new students on sexual assault, dating violence and consent. Tonight not only gives students a better understanding of how to avoid these incidents, but how to receive help after an incident occurs, according to the UHS website.
In previous years, Tonight was optional, but this year all incoming students were required to take the program. Students took a pre-test and a post-test to become eligible for spring class registration.
“We are hoping to see change from the pre-test to the post-test in terms of gaining some knowledge and skills,” UHS Graduate Assistant Molly Zemke said.
Zemke asked the University Affairs members to give their input on the Tonight program.
Many members commented that Tonight was useful in helping new students realize sexual assault can happen on college campuses. Since Tonight was created by UW-Madison students depicting the UW-Madison campus, members said they found it showed a better representation of what to expect on campus.
University Affairs members suggested to Zemke that the program needs scenarios geared towards incoming students, true stories from assault victims and the male perspective.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison is paving the way for other universities with this program, according to Zemke. She also discussed that due to the Violence Against Women Act, other campuses are required to create prevention education programs and they are looking at Tonight for inspiration.
Members were curious to see if Tonight would spread to other UW campuses in the future. University Affairs Committee Chair Kayla Van Cleave said no other universities currently have similar student-run programs to promote sexual assault awareness and prevention.
This article was corrected to reflect the following change: Kayla Van Cleave said UW-Madison is the only university with a required student-run sexual assault and prevention program, not the only campus that has made progress on sexual assault programs.
