This is the thirteenth in a weekly series called Bobcats by the Numbers comparing Ohio University to the five other Mid-American Conference universities in Ohio.
Read the previous entry in the series about recreation centers of the Ohio MAC schools.
Of the six Mid-American Conference universities in Ohio, Ohio University had the most reported sex-related crimes on its main campus, according to its 2016 Clery Act Annual Security reports.
The six MAC universities in Ohio include OU, Miami University, Bowling Green State University, the University of Toledo, Kent State University and the University of Akron.
OU had 29 reported sex-related crimes on campus in 2015, according to the university’s 2016 Clery Act Annual Security Report. Of those 29 crimes, 20 were reported rapes. Sex-related crimes in the Clery Act include rape, fondling, incest and statutory rape.
The Jeanne Clery Act, passed in 1990, requires all colleges and universities who receive federal funding to disclose statistics on crime each year, including assaults and sex-related crimes. Jeanne Clery, a 19-year-old student at Lehigh University, was raped and killed in her dorm room in 1986.
Of the six schools, Bowling Green had the second highest sex-related crimes reported on campus with 14.
Alena Luciani, a first-year graduate student studying coaching education at OU, said the number of sex-related crimes reported on OU’s campus is too high.
“The number should be lower regardless. It’s not a number we want to see increase or be a number,” Luciani said. “That’s something that obviously shouldn’t happen.”
She said that number is something OU should not be proud of.
“We shouldn’t even have (reported sex-related crimes),” Luciani said. “It’s just one of those things you never want to see that number grow at all.”
The Survivor Advocacy Program on OU’s campus can provide confidential support and counseling to survivors of sexual assault, stalking and relationship violence.
“SAP is open, willing, and ready to serve survivors at any stage of the process,” SAP Director Kimberly Castor said in an email. “Even though a year has passed, we can provide confidential support and advocacy services to those student survivors of the 29 crimes last year.”
Allyson Winterman, a senior studying child and family studies, said she thinks the high number of sex-related crimes has to do with Athens being a city where many college students live.
Of the six cities in Ohio where there is a MAC school, Athens is the second smallest, according to 2010 census data. OU had the third-highest undergraduate enrollment of the six schools 15 days after classes started for fall 2015 when looking at data from main campuses.
Parker Sistrunk, a freshman studying globalization and development, said the numbers at other schools could be lower due to a lack of reporting.
Of the six universities, the University of Toledo had the fewest reported sex-related crimes on campus with three, according to its 2016 Clery Annual Security Report.
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