Office for Civil Rights visit successful
October 22, 2014
From Mae Marsh, UAF Title IX coordinator
I want to personally thank everyone who participated and supported the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights visit to the UAF campus.
Gary D. Jackson, director of the OCR’s Seattle office, said in an email:
“I wanted to pass along my thanks for the efforts made by you and your staff to prepare for our recent on-site visit to your campuses. From the outstanding publicity on campus and online about the OCR visit to the hospitality shown to OCR staff with the focus group refreshments and the amazing Yu’pik dancers at UAA, we could not be more impressed and thankful for your contributions to the success of our visit.”
Here at UAF, the first applause goes to the students who participated in the focus groups. Feedback was that we had a good participation and that each group could have continued for longer than the hour that had been scheduled. Know that your participation is instrumental in shaping the future here at UAF and your ideas could easily become a best practice that can be shared with other educational institutions.
Additionally, thanks to UAF Marketing and Communications and to the UAF Title IX Task Force. The OCR Team was very impressed with the way we all work together to ensure our students are safe and to send the resounding message that sexual harassment and sexual violence will not be tolerated.
The OCR visit was merely an event in the ongoing journey of ensuring our campuses are free from sexual harassment and sexual violence. It may be a year and a half before we receive the final report from OCR, but that does not mean we will slow down or lose focus of our end goal. We will continue to collaborate and to work hard to design a system that is trauma informed and preemptive in stopping all forms of sexual misconduct.
Now, with our vision facing forward, in the near future you can expect increased collaboration with local advocacy groups, additional student focus groups and expansion of our bystander training. Specifically, the next big event is a UA systemwide climate survey. The goal of this voluntary, confidential and anonymous survey is to help us understand how we can improve campus safety, outreach, education and services. It is a safety survey that gauges the appropriateness of our campuses’ attitudes and responses to sexual assault. We encourage your participation, but stress it is completely voluntary.
Again, a big thank you to all here at UAF that came out to support and participate.