The Syracuse University Rape Advocacy, Prevention and Education Center may expand to reflect being officially designated as the main office that provides advocacy and support for relationship violence next semester.

‘We want to be able to communicate by our name that it is not only rape that the center assists students on, but that we are also here to assist students who are victims of relationship violence, stalking, sexual harassment and cyber bullying,’ said Janet Epstein, associate director of the R.A.P.E. Center.

While the R.A.P.E. Center deals with cases of relationship violence, this is the first time the office will officially be designated as the main office that deals with relationship violence, Epstein said. SU has seen one case of criminal stalking and four cases of physical domestic incidents in the past year, said Jennifer Horvath, Department of Public Safety spokeswoman.

The R.A.P.E. Center currently provides mandatory programs during orientation that include the definitions of domestic violence and stalking, as well as available resources for those incidents, Epstein said. The center also has a peer theater group that performs a skit about sexual violence, as well as the Mentors in Violence Prevention Program, which encourages students to become empowered bystanders who can detect and prevent abuse, Epstein said.

‘We’re just refining the programs we have now and doing more outreach to let people know that these programs exist,’ she said.

Relationship violence, and educating college students on how to deal with relationship violence, has been a much talked-about topic in light of the Jenni-Lyn Watson case. Watson, a 20-year-old college student from Liverpool, disappeared from her home the Friday before Thanksgiving and was found murdered in a park close to her home Nov. 27. Her ex-boyfriend was charged with murder.

After the arrest, DPS encouraged students to seek help from available campus resources if in an abusive relationship, according to a Nov. 30 article in The Daily Orange.

Epstein has been working with DPS to ensure SU is in absolute compliance with state legislation passed on April 7, 2009, called Chapter 13 NYS Colleges Address Domestic Violence/Stalking. The legislation mandates that state colleges must address stalking and domestic violence by giving incoming students information on the laws against those issues and how colleges deal with them.

In response to the legislation, Epstein and Horvath created a comprehensive 14-page document available on both the DPS and R.A.P.E. Center websites about the laws against domestic violence and stalking, as well as SU’s regulations toward them.

‘The next step is to distribute brochures to parents before their kids even arrive on campus,’ Horvath said. ‘We’re looking to implement this kind of information into the presentations our officers give freshmen. We might even do a poster campaign for students.’

There was a serious need for this law to be passed, Epstein said.

‘I think there’s a recognition that relationship violence is something that impacts college students,’ she said. ‘So in order to be really consistent across universities in New York, I think the idea was to create an expectation that these issues will be discussed, because for too long these are issues that we’ve been silent about.’

dclocket@syr.edu

Published on December 5, 2010 at 12:00 pm