Amy Rock (00:00): Hi everyone, and thank you for joining us for today's podcast. My name is Amy Rock and I'm campus Safety Executive Editor, and today I'm speaking with Dr. Sylvia Gray, Title IX Coordinator and Senior Director of Equity and Equal Opportunity, and Rachel Fredericks, director of Inclusive Excellence, both with Sewanee, the University of the South. And we're chatting today because Dr. G and Rachel, your team, the winners of the Clery Center 2024 Campus Safety Impact Award.
Just a brief overview, this award is now in its second year in a recognized as a program or initiative at a higher education institution that demonstrates innovation, collaboration, and also equity in enhancing campus safety. So I know for both of you and anyone on a college campus, this has an insanely hectic time, so I really appreciate you taking time out of your schedule to chat with me. And so I'll just jump right into it. To start off, can you kind of give an overview, this is for both of you, what you do at Sewanee, and then also a general overview of the winning program.
Dr. Sylvia Gray (1:01): Yeah, so I'm Dr. Sylvia Gray. I'm the Senior Director of Equity Equal Opportunity and Title IX. So I oversee compliance prevention and resources as it pertains to those areas of my title.
Dr. Rachel Fredericks (1:14): And I am Dr. Fredericks, and I oversee all things culture and identity for students here on Sewanee's campus.
So if I had to give a brief overview of the program, I would say among other frameworks within our division, this program operates under the CPR framework, which we use to identify the component of the program, which would be compliance, prevention and resources. And with that, the CPR and Action program is intended to decrease sexual violence against persons of color, black, indigenous people of color, minority identities, and similar cultures within the Sewanee community. This was done by increasing engagement across racial groups, utilizing our various climate data and division data to implement change through programming.
Amy Rock (2:01): And now we can kind of do more specifics obviously in the follow up questions, but why was CPR in Action initiative established?
Dr. Rachel Fredericks (2:09): Absolutely. Thank you for that question. So the CPR framework was, as mentioned earlier, helps us to categorize the components that fit into the mission of DEI. That mission is to build a community enriched by our diversity and centered around equity, justice, mutual respect, and shared responsibility. So the program was ultimately created to support that mission and respond to our data and the day-to-day conversations with students about feeling safe for both students of color and as individuals who are disproportionately impacted by sexual violence, which of course are indigenous, black, Hispanic, Latinx, Asian, and LGBTQ plus communities with an emphasis on our trans students.
Amy Rock (2:57): How did equity and inclusion inform the creation and implementation of the program? Because we know that that was a major requirement for the Clery Center award.
Dr. Sylvia Gray (3:07): Yeah, so I'll jump in with that question. The establishment of the initiative, I would say was actually a response to our data, which is why we turned our focus to the inaction part of the title of the program in terms of taking action. So our data showed that the sexual and racial climate on our campus intersected, and so 30% of our complainants of color had respondents who were not of color, 75 to a hundred plus of our students, and this doesn't include our employees, we engage in an annual retreat, it's called the Posse Plus Retreat, and Posse is a separate initiative that sort of helps to recruit students color to our campus. Students who've attended that retreat have consistently voiced concerns about sexual harm on our campus with the majority of those attendees. As I said, being students of color, our campus racial climate survey showed that we could really stand to improve the ways in which students of color feel safe on and off the campus through cross-racial interaction. So the hope I think, is that we can continue to be able to keep a pulse on the safety of all our students, but also those who are disproportionately impacted with safety as it pertains to sexual identity and as well as the way in which they engage around racial issues on our campus.
Amy Rock (4:31): Now, when you guys saw that data, were you shocked or was it kind of in line with what you anticipated it to be?
Dr. Sylvia Gray (4:38): Yeah, I don't think we were terribly shocked. Sewanee has a really entangled history with its racial identity and why it was formed in the first place. And so we've worked for quite some time over the last few years. The division of DEI is very young, so we've been a division, I think we're knocking on the door of three years now. So we anticipated that there was going to initially be some challenges with seeing how students feel safe on campus, faculty staff even. So it wasn't necessarily surprising. I think we just looked at it as how do we respond.
Amy Rock (5:26): Okay. And now you said the DEI at the school is relatively young, and I guess my next question is more specific to the CPR in Action, but who was involved in its creation and how were you able to determine who needed to be involved in creating that?
Dr. Rachel Fredericks (5:42): Yeah, absolutely. This was more about aligning the good work that we already do as a source of continued engagement and being intentional about new programs that are more targeted, said differently. We know that the celebration of black, Asian, and Hispanic heritage moms take place on a lot of campuses. We know that sexual misconduct training takes place as well, but how are we intersecting the two? And since we know that the work of DEI belonging community, mutual respect, shared responsibility, et cetera, is on all of us, it is ideal for everyone to be involved in this work, but without the heavy sense that they need to do something more or that it would feel like an extra weight on their capacity or the things they already have in their schedule.
Dr. Sylvia Gray (6:32): If you wouldn't mind, can I jump in on the last question? I just want to tag in just a little bit more pointed. The DEI division, it houses the Offices of Inclusive Excellence, Equity, Equal Opportunity, Title IX, Title IV, ADA, et cetera, so many of our partners were already under the same roof. So then it came down to the strategic use of our strengths. So for instance, the Office of Inclusive Excellence that Dr. Fredericks runs already oversees belonging and cultural student engagement. They already collaborate with partners with other departments, offices, initiatives that do campus-wide programming that focus on civic and cultural and social engagement. So for example, we mentioned earlier that we have something called the Posse Plus Retreat that some of the student groups, which I'll let Dr. Frederick say more about it she'd like, but they're all students who do social justice programming where they engage in pilgrimages to serve and learn about the areas that they already visit, and then they bring that sense of living in community back to the mountain.
So likewise, my office already partners with Greek Life Community Standards, Sewanee PD, risk management, fire and safety, and other student groups like our Women's Center or Student Title IX committee. But these are the type of programs where students see their student Title IX peers also coming to support, say the Asian American Heritage Month, or the students who feel that sexual assault is an issue on the campus, decide that it's a good idea to attend the Posse Plus retreat where we get to talk about sexual assault and who it effects on our campus and our campus is small. So determining who needed to be involved was more about using our partnerships and resources and the way we collaborate a bit differently. It became more about how what we do connects versus who does what and what office.
Amy Rock (8:16): Can you provide some insight into the improvements that you've seen on campus since the initiative was implemented then? This can be both qualitative and quantitative.
Dr. Rachel Fredericks (8:24): Absolutely. And actually Dr. Gray and I are going to go based on the CPR initiative framework. So I'm going to jump in with the compliance portion. And so we have an 'In Short Report' campaign and an overall encouragement to be a campus that has a culture of reporting. Once we established our EEO office and pressed into the importance of reporting discrimination reports from five to 30 sexual misconduct reports remain steady with a decrease in sexual violence towards students of color. Our stick certification post-test knowledge has also increased. Nearly half of our Greek organizations have started the stick certification training that will get them an annual acknowledgement of being Title IX and Racial Healing Certified. And more students have participated in our campus climate survey this year than in years prior. And Dr. Gray, do you want to continue with the other two components?
Dr. Sylvia Gray (9:23): Yeah. So within CPR, we have the prevention and resources. Dr. Fredericks already talked about the compliance. So for prevention, we measured our prevention component through programming evaluations, and the average scores were 4.5 out of five. The average attendance being about 55 students at every program, and we did about 35 programs this past year. We're on target to do 50 this year. And last year the attendance of that 55 broke down almost an equal measure of the races who attended those programs. And that's even when the programs were about a dialogue being held as opposed to some other sort of fun social event. And those things are significant due to the sort of historical number of black identifying students and students of color on the campus. So black identifying students average about 75 students annually. And the number of students of students of color overall average at about three 50 annually.
So the topics of dialogue have included things like campus climate and safety, sexual misconduct and racial oppression and community building while still learning about the different cultures. So our numbers overall for programming and prevention, I would say have just increased, which has been good for us. When it comes to the resources part of CPR students continue to utilize resources across campus of course, but we tend to believe that it's not just them utilizing the counseling center or the Women's Center, but all of the programs that we've already mentioned as a way to discuss and share and work through difficult topics and meet people, talk with people, get to talk with us. And so our thought is that the education coupled with the engagement helps to improve the ways in which students make choices and feel confident about the choices they make.
Amy Rock (11:16): Right. Well said. I just wanted to say I mentioned both qualitative and quantitative impacts because we know stats and numbers aren't always the only way to measure something success or lack thereof. For instance, on campus safety, we refuse to cover most safe or least safe colleges list because higher report of crime doesn't always equate to less safe, which you're sure does a perfect example because you are quite literally a walking billboard telling people that please report things. So just because something is higher reported doesn't mean it's less safe and would say in most, not most, but at least some cases, it's safe to say that it's more safe. So that's why discussing those two different types of successes is so crucial, I think.
Dr. Sylvia Gray (12:00): Absolutely.
Amy Rock (12:01): Now, what is some direct feedback that you've heard from students that were even faculty on the program Influence and impact?
Dr. Rachel Fredericks (12:08): Yeah, I mean, we get students stop us all the time on campus or when they see us in the dining hall, and they've shared through even our program evaluations that they see themselves through the programmatic experiences who on campus. So they said things like My culture and my race was highlighted. In this program, they have developed connections with their peers and have increased their cross-cultural understanding, and they'll give us feedback where they say, I didn't know that POCs and Disabled and L-G-B-T-Q individuals are more likely to be sexually assaulted. They also give feedback on their bystander support where they say, I'm reporting because I've had to intervene. And I remember you showed me the data about how often students report. One of the best compliments I've heard from a group of freshmen this year was that they didn't know the name of the Title IX lady, but they remembered the training and that they wanted to get involved.
And so they came and visited us to talk about how they can connect and get involved with the work of CPR in action. Another example is from a Greek student org, although we've had others, I would say Casi Fraternity has worked with the Title IX office to respond to the data as well. They've gotten customized posters for their houses, supported students with reporting attended programs and assisted with large programs such as Take Back The Night. Another Greek org shared that they were looking forward to getting their student Title IX certification completed so that they can get a certification banner to hang on their sorority and fraternity houses. Students are pointing to their peers and showing their peers the resources that we have on this campus, which we all know are better received through peer engagement. I know we've had even sororities like PKE, which I think stands for Phi Kappa Epsilon who worked with the Title IX office to do a train to trainer session so they can do a peer education to their own sorority while working to create a pathway toward how members can talk to each other about safety and offer support to one another, where asking for support has been a bit disjointed in the past, such as asking and hoping for support from one or two faculty or staff people here and there.
We've seen upward of 35 faculty and staff who want to simply volunteer with the Title IX office to support this work and learn how they can do their part to keep our campus safe. They engage in some of the same programs as the students do, because honestly, on all of us,
Amy Rock (14:47): I think that emphasizes the importance of Title IX and equity inclusion campus leaders getting in front of students as soon as possible after the start of the new academic year. Because I mean, I don't know when you guys started this year, but the fact that you already had a group of freshmen come up to you is pretty huge. So you obviously drilled your message in early.
Dr. Sylvia Gray (15:07): Yeah, we started on what, August 26th?
Dr. Rachel Fredericks (15:14): Well, classes started the 28th, but our training started probably more like the second week of August. So we had ground running and some pre-orientation and orientation programs. Yeah.
Amy Rock (15:24): Yeah, that's awesome. Now, what advice, I'm sure there are a lot of campuses that will read about your program and be like, oh, that's something that I can or should implement at my campus. What advice would you have for campuses looking to mitigate sexual violence on their campus?
Dr. Sylvia Gray (15:41): Yeah, so let me first acknowledge, of course, each campus is unique and everyone, they're going to have their different resources, their budgets, capacity, availability, even for Sewanee, we're unique in our geography. For instance, Sewanee is a historically white residential college. It sits on 13,000 acres and through something called the Roberson Project, everyone is able to learn about the history of Sewanee. So it's named in honor of the late Houston Roberson, who was the first tenure African-American faculty member at the college, and the first to make African-American history, the culture and focus of his teaching and scholarship and the project is an initiative that it investigates the university's historical entanglements, what I mentioned earlier with slavery and slave legacy. So I tend to say that our problems and our progress live in the same house within our Sewanee gates, but we still have to dwell together in unity as our motto encourages us.
So for campuses who have sort of those varying degrees of difference and difficulty, Sewanee has its own sort of unique history, I would say, to tackle the one thing that you can and focus on it. And so for us, it was following the data in light of our known history. And so that's something that I think I can speak to in terms of answering that question. So I might advise campuses to ask what kind of data they already collect on safety and what is it telling you? I know campuses have asked themselves, how do we continue to make our campuses safer? But I will reframe it a bit and say, who is our campus currently safe for and what education do we need to close any of the gaps that we discover? Sewanee has asked that question and interrogated it and took the steps to respond to some of those gaps.
When looking at our university history, your A SR, your annual security report is another great place to start a climate survey on race or sex or social environment, mental health substance use is another great place to start. I'm fortunate Tennessee has a survey called Tennessee Together where all of those components together are part of a climate survey that we're able to use and get briefed on each component for our campus. Another question in the same vein is who would our campus be a barrier for and what could we do to massage that Sewanee's working toward better accessibility right now so we can attract those types of students and employees, but we have to interrogate that question first. I might ask also, what do we actually mean when we say safety and where are we doing well with the components based on how we define safety?
So are we looking at psychological safety? Are we needing to look at safety for women on our campus? Are female identifying students? Are we looking at safety or need to look at it for our international students? How are we doing there? What about safety for the diverse races on our campus or safety for religious beliefs? I think sometimes safety can be put in this box as this one thing. Nobody's being murdered, nobody's being raped. But there are a lot of different components to safety, and you sort of have to score yourself across all of those pieces. So yes, it's a lot of work. It's the work of higher education when it comes to the human condition. We're supposed to cultivate environments where we can all dwell together, and I think for us, it's the top this mountain.
Amy Rock (19:17): Yeah, I think, like you said, the term safety means something different to everyone based on many different factors, and that can even change within the same person depending on their personal experiences that they've gone through while on campus. And one thing that you had mentioned about surveys, I think that's essentially a no cost effective way. So definitely a good place to start if budgets or funds are an issue for a campus. And you had also mentioned each campus is unique, and that's very true. All campus makeup is different. But I will say the one thing that unfortunately isn't unique is that all campuses are impacted by sexual violence, whether they want to admit it or not. A lot of them, as we've seen in recent news or kind of recent news, some of them like to sweep it under the rug, pretend it's not a problem there, but programs should be in place on all campuses, at least in some capacity. And we know everyone's budgets are different and being splashed here and there, but something that you said earlier too, it's not like, I can't remember exactly how you phrased it, but it's not siloed. You can pull in from different groups. It doesn't have to be someone who is specifically knowledgeable to sexual violence or its impact on people of color or different minority groups. So it's pulling in different people's knowledge. Doesn't have to be exact knowledge.
Dr. Sylvia Gray (20:33): Yeah, absolutely.
Amy Rock (20:37): That is all that I had planned for our chat. I don't know you guys wanted to add anything else that you wanted to share, anything that we didn't go over that you think deserves recognition or even people that you think deserve recognition within your group?
Dr. Sylvia Gray (20:51): I mean, just our team and our division of DEI, Tarika Zel, Kaylee Goodine, Matt Brown, our VP of DEI, who's in an inaugural role, who's leading the ship, this Dr. sbi Anderson, Tompkins. And then just our campus community and of course our upper leadership, because I think Rachel might agree with this, it's great to be at an institution that wants to do the work. I think wanting is a good place to start, but I think we appreciate being at Sewanee because Sewanee is willing to do the work, and they're taking steps that are not performative, but that we are all involved in the progression of the work, and so we want to continue that sort of energy moving forward.
Dr. Rachel Fredericks (21:47): Absolutely. I would 100% agree with that. Sewanee is invested in a safe and productive and developing campus. So I'm excited about that.
