Devious Origins

CHAPTER 9

I was in my Survey of World Geography class when my caffeine buzz finally peaked. By the time the class was ending, I was beginning to crash. I decided to grab another coffee at the Student Union on the way back to my dorm just to ease myself down gently. I sipped the bitter swill slowly while absentmindedly perusing the What's Happening board. It was covered with a assortment of official university announcements along side hand made fliers for student sponsored events. One such flier jumped out at me. It read 'TAKE ACTION Against Sexual Assault'. The event was taking place in the large art center lecture hall, and it was scheduled to begin in only a few minutes.

I thought about the young woman from the Brass Rail. I thought about how Dee had helped her. At some level I knew that sexual assault was a real and growing problem on campus, there had even been an article about it in the student paper recently, but it hadn't really hit home for me until meeting a potential victim.

I found myself walking to the art center without even consciously deciding to go. The place was packed when I got there. Mostly women, but I noticed a few guys. I took a place standing in the back with the other late arrivals. A speaker was at the podium. She tapped on the microphone to make sure it was on, and the room began to settle down in anticipation of the event kicking off.

"Hello everyone, thank you for attending," the speaker began, "for those who don't know me, my name is Samantha Adams. I'm the current chair of the student activities council, the sponsor of this event. Seated at my right is Rebecka Holten of Women Empowered Against Violence. Next to her is Judith, a student here at the university, and finally we have Mark Sanderson representing the Office of the Dean of Students. So with introductions out of the way, I would like to turns things over to Miss Holten."

People clapped politely. Rebecka Holten took the stage and waited for the applause to stop, then began speaking.

"Penbrooke is a college in crisis. Reported sexual violence is nearly twice the national average given the size of our student population, and the numbers are trending upward. It is past time for the University to implement a comprehensive education and prevention program. To that end, I would like to outline the goals for such a program, describe what has been done at other campuses, and urge everyone to sign our petition instructing the Dean's office to implement a program here. But first, let's examine the magnitude of the problem."

Rebecka brought out graphs showing national trends, with university numbers plotted next to it. She discussed the staggering statistic of nearly one if five women becoming a victim of sexual violence at some point in her life. She pointed out how the 18 to 24 year old demographic seemed to be particularly at risk. She showed bar graphs depicting Penbrooke ranked against other schools. It wasn't pretty. She started to go into a case study from some nameless east coast college and what they did to combat the problem but was interrupted by the guy from the Dean's office.

"If I could just interject for a moment," Sanderson said as he climbed to his feet. Miss Holten seemed a bit surprised by his interruption, but after a moment simply stepped back and motioned for him to take the microphone.

"I would like to point out," he began, "that these numbers so helpfully supplied by Rebecka show reported cases of alleged sexual violence. If our numbers seem higher than other institutions, it is only because we have worked hard to foster a supportive environment where victims feel more able to come forward. I want to assure everyone here that Penbrooke College is a safe place to live and learn. Nobody's interests are served by creating a panic about a crisis that doesn't really exist."

An unhappy murmuring grew in reaction to Sanderson's words. He quickly sat back down. Rebecka Holten stepped back up to the podium and continued her presentation. After describing the outreach and education program successfully implemented by another college, she began to wrap up.