One year ago Roseann Runte announced that Carleton University would open a sexual assault support centre, citing the sexual assaults that were perpetrated on our campus the previous semester. The promise made to students was that these new services would be open in September 2012. Now it is January 2013 and we find ourselves left with vague descriptions of services, broken promises, and renovations that have yet to begin.
The announcement was a great step forward; however, it has led to the erasure of six years of students’ work, demands, and needs. The Coalition for a Carleton Sexual Assault Support Centre was formed in the fall of 2007 by two graduate students in the wake of a high-profile sexual assault on Carleton University’s campus. This was not the first sexual assault on campus, and we know it was not the last.
I remember hearing about the coalition during my first year at Carleton. I learned that in 2008, Carleton students voted overwhelmingly in favour of a “university-funded, student-run sexual assault support centre.” This referendum passed with an 80 per cent yes vote and was promptly disregarded.
I began my work with the coalition knowing these facts and found a group of dynamic, strong students who were, and still are willing, to dedicate their precious time and energy to represent students at Carleton who for some reason still have to ask: where is our sexual assault support centre?
The proposed centre that was announced after six years of direct student action at Carleton continues to ignore the very root of what students are asking for.
The proposed centre is a renovation of Equity Services, a re-branding campaign at worst, and is silencing survivors’ appeals at best. There has been no communication as to what kind of support will be offered in this space, and what students’ involvement is.
Peer support is a tried and true method of sexual assault support and is highly sought after on campus. The coalition started a sexual assault support line in 2010, offering peer support to students via telephone. More often than not, the first time a person discloses their experience of sexual assault is usually to a friend, a peer. Peer support is the model the coalition has been advocating for, over the past six years, and it is what students at Carleton have been demanding.
When the coalition began their work in 2007, the message was clear and remains consistent. Students at Carleton whether undergraduate, graduate, full and part-time, any gender or age, are asking for a student-run centre offering peer support.
We are being ignored.
One of the most basic tenants of supporting survivors of violence is listening to their stories, believing them, and allowing a person to use their agency to be in control of future decisions. Runte, Duncan Watt, and the other members of our upper administration who were involved in the decision to open this proposed centre are telling survivors that they do not know best about what kind of support they need.
It is unclear what kind of student involvement will be offered in this university-run space. While it remains uplifting that a student position was recently filled for the public-education role of the proposed centre, the students are shut out from the decision-making processes and support work.
With no attention paid to survivors’ demands, no students in the decision-making processes, and no clear plan for peer support, this is not a sexual assault support centre that I can be proud of and is not what Carleton has been asking for.
