Three simple words. Together, they say a lot about a university’s commitment to end sexual assault.
“It’s On Us.”
The University of Wisconsin Oshkosh has joined the national It’s On Us campaign, a White House-initiated, nationwide effort encouraging higher education institutions’ student populations and administrations alike to play a greater, active role in the effort to prevent, better respond to and end sexual assault on and off U.S. campuses.
UW Oshkosh’s Dean of Students’ office, Women’s Center, Student Health Center, Counseling Center, Titan Athletics, University Police and other campus partners in the initiative are already sharing information and easy-to-use links to their online campus resources at a new website: uwosh.edu/itsonus.
“From our administrative offices to our residence hall communities to the classrooms and courts where we teach and coach, this is a campaign UW Oshkosh wholeheartedly endorses,” UW Oshkosh Interim Chancellor Petra Roter states in a message to the campus community at the initiative website.
“Ours is a community that supports those impacted by sexual and gender-related misconduct, assault and violence,” Roter states. “For years, UW Oshkosh has committed itself to victim support, advocacy and bystander education. Our students, staff and faculty members’ have a shared responsibility to help create a safe culture encouraging prevention and reporting.”
Roter cites programs collaboratively developed by students, staff and faculty including, but not limited to, the Division of Student Affairs’ “UMatter” campaign, Campus Awareness for Relationship Education (CARE) and Women’s Center initiatives and educational forums — programs designed to “empower students, faculty and staff to do the right thing – to break bystander culture by speaking out, stepping up and taking action before people are in danger or endanger others.”
An array of the campaign’s supporters—including students, faculty, regional diversity advocates and University fraternity members—lent their voices in the production of a short It’s On Us video message before the Oct. 8 Fox Valley Take Back the Night rally and march at UW Oshkosh.
Women’s Center Director M. Geneva Murray cited the Center’s annual lineup of awareness-and-ally-building events as further examples of the University’s commitment to the It’s On Us model and mission. Each year, the Women’s Center co-hosts the Fox Valley Take Back The Night rally and march. This year, it co-sponsored the Aug. 18 display of the “Monument Quilt” in Kolf Sports Center, a project of FORCE: Upsetting Rape Culture. It also supports the annual Walk a Mile in Her Shoes® event, which, like It’s on Us, activates men in the effort to end sexual assault.
“The It’s On Us campaign is a call to action for each of us on campus to take direct action in challenging rape culture and affirm our continued effort to ensure that survivors and victims of sexual violence are supported on campus and in our communities,” Murray said.
UW Oshkosh Counseling Center Director Sandra Cox said the campaign “exemplifies the core of what we hope all individuals understand which is that we are all responsible for each other’s wellbeing.”
“At the Center, we focus our prevention and intervention efforts on developing insight into how to keep ourselves safe and well as well as how to intervene if you are a bystander,” Cox said. “The Counseling Center philosophy of having an impact on encouraging a healthy, safe campus greatly aligns with the campaign in that it is truly on all of us to commit to the safety and wellbeing of all.”
Roter states that UW Oshkosh will continue to share resources and chronicle the campus community’s work related to the It’s on Us campaign on the new website as the academic year progresses.
Meanwhile, that information hub is providing easy access to existing campus resources for students, staff and faculty to help them “recognize that non-consensual sex is sexual assault, identify situations in which sexual assault may occur, intervene in situations where consent has not or cannot be given, and create an environment in which sexual assault is unacceptable and survivors are supported.”
“Our caring, compassionate campus community is a national leader when it comes to education, support, advocacy and bystander-prevention efforts,” she said. “That must not prevent us from continually finding ways to test ourselves and strengthen our resolve in the national pledge to prevent and end sexual and gender-related misconduct, assault and violence on campuses.”
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