Two sexual assaults on campus in little over a week is another sign that Carleton needs a sexual assault support centre, according to the Coalition for a Carleton Sexual Assault Centre’s co-founder.
Co-founder Julie Lalonde has been part of a five-year push for a dedicated, on-campus centre to offer counselling and education on sexual assault. The coalition currently operates a volunteer-run support line, which receives calls every day from students looking for resources or who have been sexually assaulted, she said.
Part of the funding for a centre would come from the Graduate Students’ Association (GSA), which voted for a $1 levy to fund the centre last year, according to GSA president Elizabeth Whyte.
The coalition submitted a joint proposal with Equity Services for space in the new buildings, Lalonde said. However, the coalition can’t negotiate the terms since they’re not affiliated with the university. This means they’re no closer than they were five years ago, she said.
A lack of space and a need for funding are some of the reasons the university hasn’t supported the centre, according to Carleton president Roseann Runte.
“When I first came here students came in and said to me, we’d like a sexual assault centre [and many other centres] . . . the list was a really long list ,” Runte said.
Although Lalonde said it’s just a matter of priority, part of the reason is also a question of how qualified non-professionals are to administer support, Runte said.
“The university needs to have students work with professionals,” Runte said, adding that she wouldn’t give advice to students who were assaulted because she wouldn’t want to say the wrong thing.
“We can’t just have students talk to other students,” she said.
Lalonde said talking to students is exactly what students want.
“Some people just want to sit in front of someone that they know has a lot in common with them and is able to support and validate them,” she said.
In some cases, sexual assault victims don’t feel comfortable going to administration-run services, Lalonde added.
“Carleton has this obsession with this idea of liability . . . If what the coalition is proposing isn’t sufficient or legal then there isn’t a sexual support centre in the city that is, because all of them operate peer support lines,” she said.
All coalition members have at least 40 hours of training from the Sexual Assault Support Centre of Ottawa, she said.
Currently, the university offers support and Carleton is taking similar steps to other universities to prevent further sexual assaults, according to Allan Burns, Carleton’s director of university safety.
“I hope that a couple of incidents like this isn’t sending out a message that Carleton isn’t safe,” Burns said.
In cases of sexual assaults by strangers, Lalonde agreed that Carleton is at no more risk than other campuses.
In the last few years, Carleton has increased its security staff, hired a sexual assault co-ordinator and educator, put mirrors in the tunnels, installed more cameras, and so on, Runte said.
But Lalonde said the issue at hand is that 95 per cent of assaults are by people the victim knows and most go unreported.
Instead of addressing the issue of violence against women, Carleton offers bandage and reactive solutions, Lalonde said.
“These measures don’t change the fact that you were just assaulted,” she said. “Why don’t we prevent them from getting assaulted in the first place?”
