The Department of Higher Education released five initiatives for college campuses last month.
The Ohio Department of Higher Education launched a state initiative last month to try to curb sexual assault on college campuses, but campuses might not have to adhere to them.
The initiative, which was outlined in a report called Changing Campus Culture in late October, offers five recommendations to college campuses as to how to best respond to issues of sexual assault.
"(The objective) is truly changing the culture on campus, not just talking about it," Sara Molski, the assistant policy director for the department, said. "We're getting into student affairs, working with the students and getting into the education and the awareness of this issue."
Molski has been the acting project manager for the initiative. The project also included the presidents of Ohio State University, Otterbein University, the University of Rio Grande and Rio Grande Community College, who helped formulate the objectives.
The report calls on universities to "communicate a culture of shared respect and responsibility" and "use data to guide action."
Jeff Robinson, spokesman for the Department of Higher Education, said the goal is to have every college campus meet each of the recommendations by the 2016-2017 academic year.
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Whether they meet those objectives will be determined, in part, by "campus climate surveys" in order to gauge the level of sexual assault programming at every campus.
The department will send out one of those surveys later this month, and will send out another in 2017.
"(We use the surveys) to get a feel for what they’re already doing now and what prevention programs they have in place," Robinson said. "Everybody is at a different level of what they’re doing."
A driving force behind the initiative is the $2 million the department has in its back pocket to fund sexual assault programs at college campuses throughout the next two years. That money was appropriated from the Ohio state budget approved in June.
Robinson said colleges would be eligible for special grants if they meet all the objectives, but that there was no penalty for colleges that don't meet the objectives. He said the process was still in its "early stages."
"In general — we already are doing, or have in the works, every recommendation made in the report from the (Department of Higher Education)," Jenny Hall-Jones, the Ohio University interim vice president for student affairs and dean of students, said in an email.
This month, OU President Roderick McDavis and Athens Mayor Paul Wiehl signed a memorandum of understanding "to better coordinate our investigations and information."
Hall-Jones also said in an email the university created a new position in OU's Division of Student Affairs in which a person will “make recommendations for evidenced –based sexual misconduct education/training programs.”
Molski said she has been meeting with and having phone calls with representatives from several universities to discuss the initiatives, but she has not yet met with anyone from OU.
"We will be working with campuses to bring them all up to a higher level as we go forward," Robinson said.
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