Sexual Assault Awareness Week
Sept. 18, 2011
Dear Marquette Students:
As we recognize Sexual Assault Awareness Week with a variety of activities, I want to take this opportunity personally to help raise awareness around this important issue and share what has changed on campus and what new actions we continue to take to help keep you safe.
If we are true to our mission as a Catholic and Jesuit university, it is clear that we need to do better as a campus community, both to care for and watch out for each other and to support those who come forward to report a sexual assault.
Since arriving on campus in August, I have worked closely with colleagues across the university on this issue. As a result of the changes that began last spring, I believe that we are a university community better able to respond to the problem of sexual violence than ever before.
In the past few months Marquette has:
- Changed and strengthened its reporting policy in April so that all sexual assault allegations reported to the Department of Public Safety are reported promptly to the Sensitive Crimes Unit of the Milwaukee Police Department.
- Provided all first-year students with mandatory sexual misconduct awareness and prevention training.
- Started to provide more extensive training to 1,500 students -- including RAs, Greeks, all student-athletes, VOICE volunteers, peer health educators, students in several classes and others. This three-part program will run through November.
- Had nearly 40 faculty and staff volunteer their time to be trained and to facilitate the student programs.
- Added a full-time victim advocate to the Student Health Service staff.
- Expanded student programs to include training in Bystander Intervention, a campus–wide initiative aimed at ensuring the safety of people in vulnerable situations.
- Put in place for the new school year stronger policies and procedures regarding sexual misconduct that reflect suggestions from federal guidelines, law enforcement and victim advocates. These new policies and procedures are included in At Marquette, the student handbook.
- A comprehensive sexual misconduct website, including information about on-campus and off-campus resources and information about various forms of sexual misconduct, is under development.
More can and will be done. I have personally met with law enforcement officials and ask for their continued support. I have asked Janine Geske, Distinguished Professor of Law, to continue her work convening campus, community and law enforcement officials around the issue of sexual violence. I have invited three distinguished intercollegiate athletic leaders from across the country to conduct a peer review of our athletic program, including the culture of athletics on campus, and will use their work as the foundation for the search for a new Athletic Director.
We want you to be safe and to feel supported. I recognize that some of you who are reading this may have already been affected by sexual violence. I encourage you to use the resources on and around Marquette to provide you with the support you may need. Sexual violence of any kind is unacceptable in a community committed to the care and development of each of its members in the Ignatian tradition of cura personalis.
At the inauguration ceremonies later this week, we will celebrate together the aspirations we have for Marquette. Core to those aspirations is your personal success, including being part of a community in which we support and care for one another. Please take advantage of this week's programming and of the opportunities throughout this year to learn more about the long-term impact of sexual violence and how, together, we can make a difference.
Scott R. Pilarz, S.J.
President
Office of
the President
Rev. Robert A. Wild, S.J., to serve as interim president
The Board of Trustees has chosen Rev. Robert A. Wild, S.J., to lead Marquette University as interim president. Wild, who served as president of Marquette from 1996 to 2011, will take over for Rev. Scott R. Pilarz, S.J., who announced on Sept. 20, that after 10 years as a university president at Marquette University and the University of Scranton, he was resigning to pursue other apostolic opportunities.
Father Pilarz will assist Father Wild with the transition, while traveling back and forth to the East coast to care for his ailing father, which he noted in a letter to the Marquette community on Sept. 25. Father Wild is concluding his duties with the Wisconsin Province and will take over as interim president on Oct. 16.
Wild will serve as interim president until August 2014. A new permanent president is expected to be in place for the 2014-15 academic year.
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