“If they don’t say yes, it’s a no.”
Carleton released three public service announcements (PSAs) focused on sexual consent. The PSAs made by Carleton’s department of safety, Equity Services, and the Coalition for a Carleton Sexual Assault Centre are in response to last year’s four reported sexual assaults.
The PSA project united students, university safety, equity services and other administrative departments on campus into “a great partnership” said Sarah McCue, from the Coalition for a Carleton Sexual Assault Centre.
The PSAs touch on several aspects of sexual assault and bring “focus on what is consent, the role that alcohol does play or can play in sexual assaults, and to let people know what services are available on campus and in the Ottawa community” said Carrolyn Johnston, equity advisor and the co-ordinator of sexual assault services for Carleton.
“They’re very important because in our society we don’t often talk about sexual assault but the PSAs are a good way to start having conversations,” she said.
Ron Couchman, co-founder of the student group Men for Equality and Non-violence agreed that “sexual assault PSAs are something we should be having more often.”
“At some point I think sexual assaults are pretty common everywhere across Canada, particularly on campus in universities — people sort of work, sleep and go to school here, so this is their whole community,” he said.
According to Couchman, an average of one out of four women will be sexually assaulted during their four years in university.
“So because there’s 15 to 16 thousand women here four years at a time, then we can imagine during that four years about four thousand [sexual assaults]will take place,” he said. “It’s an incredibly high number.”
Allan Burns, director of the department of university safety, was involved from the initial planning stages through the recording and the financing of the PSAs.
Similarly, Burns worked to ensure students were safe on campus for fall orientation week. Additional forces have been put into place across the campus to assure a safe welcome to the new flock of students coming in this week.
“We work on the planning of all the events that are going on to make sure that we have the appropriate coverage,” Burns said.
Couchman said he still thinks the PSAs are “not enough, but certainly, it’s a good first step.”
“There will be things that students still want, for example, a peer support center [which]we still don’t have,” he said.
“We’re definitely going to be encouraging the administration to do more PSAs and open their own sexual assault cente,” he said.
“Even while we’re collaborating we’re going to push some more because we still think there’s a lot more to be done.”
