Last Thursday, Sept. 7, wellness services and It’s On Us, a new campus organization, hosted End the Red Zone. Seventeen booths gathered on the esplanade to raise awareness about the “Red Zone,” the time between the first week of school and Thanksgiving break when 50% of sexual assaults on college campuses occur.

The event promoted on and off campus resources such as the San Antonio AIDS foundation, the Kind Clinic and departments like Health Services. The event also educated students about strategies such as consent, alcohol safety, healthy relationships and bystander safety taught by wellness services’ peer health educators.

With a new semester comes educational opportunities for the student body. Marlaina Widmann, student wellness coordinator, emphasized the importance of hosting an event like End the Red Zone.

“I wanted to host an event to address this issue at the start of the semester and give students the knowledge and skills to end the Red Zone and prevent sexual violence at Trinity,” Widmann said.

Triana Perez, sophomore undeclared major, appreciated the resources that were promoted and the non-judgmental nature of the event.

“Being an international student, I think it’s really interesting to walk around and get resources here in the States. Being international, it’s hard to find out about these resources,” Perez said.

While the event was required for some, students still benefited from the resources provided. Liza Stickney, sophomore business major, attended as a requirement for Fraternity and Sorority Life (FSL), but stayed longer than needed.

“I originally came for Spurs. That’s how I found out about it, but I ended up really learning a lot,” Stickney said.

To emphasize sexual violence prevention, wellness services provided the new student wellness trainings for first-year students at Welcome Weekend. The new campus organization, It’s On Us, is a national group opening a chapter this semester. Their mission is to combat campus sexual assault by raising student-led grassroots awareness and encouraging students to attend prevention education programs.

While these off-campus organizations appear throughout the year, their repeated presence emphasizes available resources to students. Diya Joshy, first-year psychology major, recognized the importance of this event.

“I feel like these same stands have been here a few times, but it’s always helpful even though it’s a little bit repetitive. It’s good to get the information over again,” Joshy said.

Collaboration between Equal Opportunity Services (EOS) and wellness services has historically been the norm at Trinity. EOS specializes in educating students about legal requirements surrounding sexual assault reporting, investigations and accommodations. Wellness services’ education focuses on sexual violence prevention including bystander intervention, healthy relationships and establishing consent.

In the midst of wellness services’ expanding of sexual violence awareness resources, Title IX is in a state of flux. As the Title IX coordinator position is interim, the current coordinator, Kateeka Harris, works part-time and remotely. In the meantime, Bernadette Buchanan, or “Dr. B,” in the office of the dean of students is there if students need to speak with someone in person. Harris monitors the [email protected] email and the online reports.

As the school year continues, wellness services hopes to strengthen their programming with EOS.

“I have been excited to establish new offerings from wellness services, and am excited to continue to grow them to truly make impactful change on campus. We will continue to grow due to the Mental Wellness Initiative funded by SGA and our new student groups,” Widmann said.

This semester Marcy Youngdahl, director of integrated counseling, health and wellness services, put together a Sexual Violence Prevention workgroup. Created after analyzing the results from the Higher Education Data Sharing Consortium Sexual Assault Campus Climate survey the workgroup was deemed necessary to address safety disparities.

“80% of the female students responding to the survey felt safe on campus vs. 98% of males. In 2017, 85% of female students felt safe on campus,” Youndahl wrote in an email. “The mission of the workgroup is ‘To end sexual violence, harassment and misconduct at Trinity University.’ While this may sound like it’s an unattainable goal, why would we strive for anything less?”