ASAP: A 4-Tiered Approach

Turn Down for What? Building Sex-Positive Party Culture

The program focuses on party culture while introducing basic ideas of consent, rape culture, sex positivity in an accessible way, ideally in mixed-gender audiences. The program asks participants to consider how party culture can be transformed to make it less characterized by rape culture and sexual assault and more encouraging of healthier partying habits as well as positive, affirming, consensual sexual and intimate relationships characterized by open, honest communication.

Implementation within Greek Life at the U of A

At least 60% of every Greek organization was required to attend one of more than 23 sessions offered in the Spring semester of 2016. Assessment was qualitative, asking members to name ways that they could make party culture more preventative of sexual assault. By and large, results showed that sorority members took the program more seriously and offered substantive responses. While some fraternity members offered substantive answers, many indicated through responses that they saw the program as a requirement that didn’t apply to them. The program was offered for new members (but only for fraternities) in the Fall of 2017. We plan to offer a similar program focusing on all new members at the beginning of every fall. This program has (as of April 2017) been delivered to more than 4000 members of the Greek community.

Take the Lead

Take the Lead is a 90-minute sexual violence education program for men-identified groups that uses language of leadership to encourage deeper engagement with issues of sexual violence. The program focuses on understanding consent, the nature of perpetration of sexual assault, and bystander intervention. The program introduces the idea of “critical mass” in hopes of helping members understand that they don’t need a majority in order to realize change, only a critical mass of men.

Fierce

Fierce is a 90-minute education and empowerment workshop for women-identified students that focuses on understanding and deconstructing rape culture, it’s negative effects, and women’s role in slut shaming and victim blaming. The program introduces the concept of the spectrum of violence, and spends time analyzing the ways in which men and women contribute to violence in varying degrees of severity. Through self-reflection and critical analysis of women’s individual and group roles, this program gives concrete steps to address rape culture.  

Implementation within Greek Life at the U of A

At least 60% of all fraternities and sororities were required to participate which focuses on ways that individual members as well as Greek organizations can take the lead in addressing sexual assault at the U of A. Each organization was required in the Fall of 2016 or Spring of 2017 attend the session with only their organization (except for a few of our smaller organizations which are paired to maximize our time spent).

As of April 2017, 875 members of U of A Fraternities have participated in Take the Lead, and over 600 Sororitiy members have participated in Fierce.

Beginning in the Spring of 2017, all new members of Greek organizations will be required to attend a Take the Lead or Fierce workshop.

Wildcat Way

The Wildcat Way (WCW) is a six-workshop series addressing sexual assault, rape culture, bystander intervention, and social justice-related issues. The program is led by undergraduate peer educators who are members of SPEAC - Students Promoting Empowerment and Consent, an internship program of the Women's Resource Center where students can participate for up to 3 credit hours (though students can also participate for non-credit). The peer educators receive extensive training and practice in facilitating our WCW workshops before they facilitate them in teams to participants in our WCW events. Occasionally, our peer educators may offer one individual session (such as Consent 101) from WCW to audiences outside of those participating in the six-workshop series.

WCW is usually conducted for a smaller group and geared toward student leaders. It is also facilitated in gendered spaces (with those who identify as women/transgender/nonbinary participating in sessions separately from those who identify as men. Notably, most our of peer educators identify as women).

Implementation within Greek Life at the U of A

In the Fall of 2016, the inaugural WCW series was completed by 47 enrolled members of U of A sororities. In the Spring of 2017, the second WCW series was completed by 20 enrolled members of U of A fraternities (notably with a large number of members dropping out along the way).

Those who completed the full workshop series were awarded a certificate of completion.

Beginning in Fall 2017, WCW will be conducted simultaneously (though, again, in gender-segregated workshops) for U of A fraternities and sororities.

We also are working to offer WCW outside of Greek Life, and we plan to offer the workshop series in partnership with Residence Life in the near future.

Agents of Positive Change

This semester-long, credit-offering course aims to deepen and further develop the sexual violence prevention leadership skills of members of the leadership organizations at the University of Arizona through sustained education and action planning. The course aims to empower participants with the knowledge and skills to be effective leaders in addressing sexual assault within their organizations. Approximately half of course sessions are offered in gender-segregated environments while the other half are offered in mixed-gender environments in order to allow participants to engage in deeper dialogue with people who share their gender as well as collaborative dialogue across gender difference. The final course project involves planning and implementing a responsible and effective program for participants’ fraternity or sorority aimed at preventing sexual violence.

The course is currently being revamped and will be offered in the near future.

While Agents of Positive Change is currently planned for implementation with Greek students, it is open to all students and serves as a model for future courses that serve all students.