Addressing sexual harassment on Sault College campus

Certainly not a matter to be taken lightly, the Sault College board of governors, at its meeting Thursday, approved a Sexual Violence and Harassment Action Plan Implementation Report as recommended by the Sexual Violence and Harassment Task Force.

The college tracks and reports incidents that meet broadly defined Ministry-established criteria which involve any act targeting a person’s sexuality, gender identity or gender expression, whether physical or psychological in nature. 

The college had four such incidents out of approximately 3,000 students last year, ranging from physical incidents to sexually harassing statements, said Janice Beatty, Sault College corporate and student services vice president, addressing the board.

“They spanned a variety of activities, so they were not all physical, but obviously we take everything that gets reported to us very seriously.”

Beatty said the college tries to meet three goals in dealing with the potential for sexual assault and violence on campus.

Those goals include educating students as to what sexual assault is and that there are supports available.

“We’ve put a lot of effort into understanding what consent is...without consent, you’re straying into dangerous territory in terms of of sexual assault. Consent is everything and we reinforce that message each and every time we can in a variety of ways,” Beatty said.

“The other thing that we do is we try to teach our students what they can do if they think they see a situation where a sexual assault might be pending, evolving or in progress.”

“We don’t want them to be bystanders. We want them to be ‘upstanders.’ We want them to stand up for the individual, teach them ways in which they can intervene that are non-threatening, non-violent and that don’t escalate a situation,” Beatty said.

An example of upstanding, Beatty said, could include a student observing a fellow student who has been drinking and getting a little too amorous with another individual and gently taking that student outside for a breath of fresh air and out of the situation without any confrontation.

“You stand up for your friend but don’t turn it into an escalating situation.”

Thirdly (and primarily), Beatty said “we encourage reporting. We want to deal with the cases that occur. We know there is a great reluctance to report (not only at the college, but throughout society).”

Beatty said the college refreshes its sexual violence and harassment work every two years as new students come in.

“It’s an ongoing process,” Beatty said, adding the college encourages victims to report an assault to police for serious incidents.

“Sometimes they will and sometimes they won’t.”

“It’s a variety of things we see and they’re not all physical...there have been cases where I wish that we could invoke the authorities but the individual has not wanted to, and we respect that. But we do have an internal cadre of people who have gone through training in this (to help students deal with sexual violence and harassment).”

“Sometimes they (reports of such incidents) are misunderstandings, not always, but I would not hesitate to bring in a third party (such as an independent reviewer) if I felt that was required. They’re all serious and they all in some way cause trauma to the individual who’s reporting. It’s not easy.”

Beatty said counselors are available for students who complain of sexual harassment, the college also providing connections to crisis services in the Sault.

Bottom line, Beatty said “we want people to report it so we can deal with it.”