Carleton will have an administration-run sexual assault support centre in place by September 2012, the university announced Jan. 4.
The new support centre will be run by Equity Services and housed on the fifth floor of Robertson Hall in a renovated room, said Linda Capperauld, co-ordinator for Equity Services.
In a written statement, Carleton president Roseann Runte said the centre would include student-led education and support initiatives.
The centre is “dedicated to offering proactive programming, including education, awareness campaigns and training, as well as support to individuals,” Runte said.
The new centre will have an additional 450 square feet on top of what is currently offered by Equity and will include a conference room for meetings and planning, a quiet room for counseling, as well as a small front reception area, she said.
An advisory group composed of students, staff and faculty will be created to determine how the centre will be created and run.
However, final decisions will rest with Equity Services, Capperauld said.
She acknowledged the efforts made by the coalition and other student groups in keeping the issue of sexual assault on campus in the forefront. She also said she hopes to work with them and other students to create and run programs in a collective matter.
Coalition co-ordinator Julie Lalonde said she’s angered about the administration’s decision to not have a centre that is at least partially student-run.
“I think on a whole it’s a bit of a victory in the sense that Carleton has done a complete 180 from when we first started,” she said following a meeting with Equity Services, Jan. 4.
“But it’s really concerning to us that they’re putting together a centre that they say is for students, but doesn’t reflect at all what students have been asking for.”
The coalition and supporters have been campaigning for years, with several demonstrations in the last couple of months alone, for a student-run centre.
Lalonde said the administration did not notify the coalition of their decision, and that she found out about the announcement from an Ottawa Citizen article.
She said the coalition was scheduled to present their proposal for a centre to Carleton’s board of governors in the coming week.
“The centre is starting off with controversy,” Lalonde said. “We’ve spent years negotiating with Equity Services, we built up a relationship with them and they just went behind our back and made this announcement.”
Lalonde was told by Equity that the decision was final, she said.
Coalition members also argued that locating the centre in Robertson Hall will make it harder for students to access.
But Capperauld said the less central location will offer more confidentiality.
“We know even though a lot of students don’t come to Robertson Hall, there are many students who go farther across campus to go to [health and counselling], or athletics, so we’re not this unknown entity,” she said.
“I think our challenge will be to ensure that the environment really is very welcoming and that students know where we are and that people will want to come.”
Lalonde said she hopes to spend the next eight months determining what the sexual assault centre will look like and pushing for a bigger role for students.
“We’re really hoping that Carleton acknowledges the fact that we know what we’re talking about, that students know what students need, and that we should have a bigger role to play,” she said.
