The Coalition for Respect completed its first full year of working with Trinity University last year. According to the Trinity University Sexual Assault web page, the Coalition for Respect is “a committee of staff, faculty, and students” that “meets every semester to review the campus climate with respect to sexual misconduct. This group focuses specifically on compliance, policy, prevention and education, and advocacy.”

The coalition highlights that sexual misconduct is a community-centered issue and the diversity seen in the coalition reflects that.

“The whole idea of the coalition is to give broad-based community involvement in this issue rather than to have students view this as an administration issue, because it’s not,” said David Tuttle, associate vice president and dean of students. “This is a community issue, and I think having this coalition really reinforced that it is a community issue.”

The coalition includes three subcommittees, and each holds different responsibilities.

“There’s Compliance, which works to make sure that we’re up-to-date with the legislation. There’s the Policy committee, which continues to revise and develop policy to make sure we’re current, but that it’s clear and students have input on the policy. And then the third subcommittee, that Sheryl Tynes leads up, is the Education and Prevention committee. That’s probably the most important subcommittee. They do the events and programs,” Tuttle said.

Last year the Education and Prevention committee put on events such as the Bystander Action NSO program, the Keith Edwards talk and the Spring Break Nacho Hour, among other events.

Currently there are no speakers or activities set up by the Education and Prevention committee for the fall semester. However, students are encouraged to attend the meetings put on every three weeks to bring new ideas.

“If we do something, we’d probably do it again in early spring semester. We don’t have anything specific set up in the fall. But we did put magnets in the residence halls this year, and we’re open,” said Sheryl Tynes, associate vice president for academic affairs and professor of sociology.

The coalition also put out an annual report addressing the activities of the organization and the cases that were handled over the past year. The 2014-2015 report can be found on the Coalition for Respect Trinity University Facebook page.

“It reported on policies. It reported on programs that were done and it reflected the cases that were handled judicially,” Tuttle said.

Students and faculty interested in being involved with the Coalition for Respect should follow the group’s Facebook page for updates on meetings. Students should also expect an email regarding sexual misconduct in the first few weeks of school.

“The more that we have people involved from different areas, the more perspectives we have, the better,” Tuttle said.