By: Adam Kleiber On March 2, 2017, I attended a public deliberation titled: “Take Back Our Campus: Preventing Sexual Assault.” This deliberation took place from 3:30 to 5:00 pm at Webster’s Bookstore, 133 E. Beaver Avenue. The event was hosted and moderated by Penn State students named Adam, Harshitha, Jessica, Hugo, Gwen, Matt, Caroline, Caitlin, and Duneshka.
The first approach for addressing the issue of sexual assault was “reducing alcohol consumption.” My group’s moderators discussed some statistics that connected alcohol consumption to sexual assault. For example, 50% of students at Penn State describe themselves as “moderate or heavy” drinkers. According to our moderators, studies have been done that connect moderate drinking to sexual assault. Our group discussed how, although alcohol can sometimes contribute to “blurred lines” of consent, it is important to behave responsibly even when under the influence of alcohol. Additionally, there was a discussion of how the rules of consent shift when one person is drunk and when both people are drunk. There was also a discussion of how it is the responsibility of bystanders to recognize when individuals are too drunk and help them get home safely. The second approach for dealing with the issue of sexual assault was “help available.” Our group moderator discussed SAFE WALK, blue light emergency phones, and other similar options. We talked about how SAFE WALK wasn’t very effective due to the long wait times and inconvenience of using it off-campus. One person in our group had tried to use it before, but ended up having to wait almost 20 minutes for an auxiliary police officer to arrive. Furthermore, the blue light emergency phones are supposed to be visible from almost everywhere outside on campus, but unfortunately, there are many places that these phones are unaccessible from. A specific location that was brought up was behind the lab buildings, a place a lot of students cut through on their way across campus. As such, the group thought that more emergency lights should be added so they truly are accessible everywhere on campus. The third approach for tackling the issue of sexual assault was “bystander intervention.” The premise of this topic was that people who see sexual assault (or potential sexual assault) occurring are currently too unwilling to step-in and take action. The guys in my group talked about how sometimes it can be hard to step-in and tell a guy to knock it off without it turning into a larger confrontation. Some of the girls discussed strategies for dealing with potential sexual assault scenarios in a less confrontational way that de-escalates the situation rather than escalating it. Basically, the conclusion we came to is: it’s worth a moment of awkwardness or confrontation if you can protect a girl or guy from a tremendous amount of emotional and physical pain. In conclusion, I thought this deliberation was pretty insightful. Sexual assault is definitely a major issue, so having a public forum to voice concerns and ideas for moving forward is definitely invaluable for creating a safer community at Penn State. Hopefully some of the ideas discussed at this deliberation are seen by the administration and implemented as soon as possible.
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By: Adam Kleiber On March 1, 2017, I attended a public deliberation titled: “The Nation, The State, and You: How Do We Handle Women’s Reproductive Rights?” This deliberation took place from 7:00 to 8:30 pm at Webster’s Bookstore, 133 E. Beaver Avenue. The event was hosted and moderated by Penn State students named Amanda, Anna, Kerri, and Leila.
The deliberation began with Amanda giving a monologue about her younger sister and the reason she was on birth control at the young age of 11. As I had already seen this speech given in our RCL class, the dramatic effect of revealing that this 11 year-old was actually Amanda’s sister was somewhat lost on me, but it looked like it had the intended effect on other members of the deliberation. After this introduction concluded, we were then broken up into smaller groups that were each moderated by one of the aforementioned hosts of the deliberation. The first approach for addressing women’s reproductive rights was “control at the Federal level.” My group’s moderator, Anna, talked about some important federal court cases and laws pertaining to reproductive rights including Roe v. Wade, the Affordable Care Act, and the Hyde Amendment. One of the main talking points at the federal level pertained to the burden placed on employers to provide their employees with birth control, as well as tax dollars going towards abortions. The main argument presented against this was that if you let people choose where their tax dollars go, based on religious or any other moral objection, what’s to stop people from saying that they don’t want their tax dollars to go to schools since they don’t have children (or another similar analogy). In my opinion, this argument is kind of close to being an example of the “slippery slope fallacy,” but I agree with the general point that people shouldn’t be able to choose where their tax dollars go. The second approach for tackling the issue of women’s reproductive rights was “control at the State level.” Our moderator talked about the laws in Pennsylvania surrounding abortion. For example, women cannot terminate a pregnancy after 24 weeks and must undergo a state-sponsored counseling session before undergoing the procedure. Our group talked about how disgusting it is that women were required to get counseling before exercising their right to choose. However, a compromise that our group brought up was leaving the counseling as an option for women who wanted (or needed) it. The third approach for dealing with women’s reproductive rights was “control at the community and individual level.” This approach tied back into the federal level approach as we again discussed Roe v. Wade and the right of an individual to privacy. A major point that our group brought up is that, while we believed that abortion should be the mother’s choice, it was dangerous to remove any and all regulation surrounding abortion because it may lead to clinic conditions that could potentially endanger the mother. In general, however, we agreed that the government should not interfere with an individual’s decisions surrounding his/her body. In conclusion, I thought this deliberation offered a lot of valuable insight into the issues surrounding women’s reproductive rights. It was especially valuable to me, as a man, to be exposed to the perspective of all the women at the deliberation. In fact, I think the ratio was something like 3:1; girls:guys. I definitely feel more informed on the issue and feel like I have a better understanding of the different perspectives on said issue. By: Adam Kleiber On February 27, 2017, I attended a public deliberation titled: “School Spirits: Regulating Drinking Culture at Penn State.” This deliberation took place from 7:00 to 8:30 pm at Asendorf Hall, Faith United Church of Christ, 300 E. College Avenue. The event was hosted and moderated by Penn State students named Andrew, Chae, Chris, Courtney, Erin, Hope, Jessica, Matt, Nikhil, Paige, Sarah, and Sierra. I attended this deliberation with several members of my deliberation group: Shannon, Carly, Billy, and Ale. This was the first deliberation that I had attended, so I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect. The moderators began by having everyone go around and introduce themselves and briefly share their personal reasons for attending the deliberation. If I had to guess, there were approximately 20 people in attendance, so by the time the introductions were finished I think I had heard the phrase, “Uh, yeah, I’m here because the topic is interesting, you know, and it’s just really relevant to college students,” about 20 times. However, the awkwardness of the introduction quickly subsided as the moderators began to talk about their first approach for tackling the drinking culture at Penn State: “Relaxation of Tensions.” As the name suggests, the premise of this approach is reducing the legal and university-based consequences for underage drinking. One of the major talking points was that by reducing the consequences of getting “caught” drinking, you may increase the willingness of individuals to call an ambulance for their friend who might have had a little too much to drink. This is especially relevant considering the recent death of Tim Piazza at Beta Theta Pi. The second approach for addressing the drinking culture at Penn State was “moderation.” This option would uphold current university policies, while also increasing the education available to students on the dangers of drinking. A number of people spoke up to say that this option doesn’t really matter because, regardless of how much information you give to someone, they’re either going to choose to drink or choose not to drink. All these statistics are just abstract formalities that nobody pays attention to. Also, in my opinion, the BASICS and SAFE programs are useless anyways, because the only way you can actually determine your limits is by drinking relatively frequently. Somewhat ironically, the less you drink, the more likely you will push yourself past your limit when you do choose to drink. Furthermore, the programs don’t include any information on jungle juice which I would argue is the most dangerous of any alcoholic beverage. The third approach for dealing with the drinking culture at Penn State was “strict enforcement.” This option would increase the consequences for getting caught drinking underage. The argument presented was that by increasing the consequences, people would be less willing to take the risk to drink. However, as I briefly mentioned in my last point, people are either going to choose to drink, or choose not to drink. While increasing the consequences may deter some people from partaking in underage drinking, I doubt it would have a lasting effect. However, a more immediate effect would be that people would be less willing to call for help when their friends drink too much because nobody wants to get their friends in trouble. In conclusion, I thought this deliberation was really interesting. The moderators were successful in driving the conversation and getting everyone involved. The audience was made-up of entirely Penn State students which may have limited discussion somewhat, since we all share a similar perspective. However, the difference in perspective from members of Greek Life, non-Greek life, club sports, etc. were different enough to drive conversation in whatever direction they wanted it to go. I definitely learned some things and was exposed to some perspectives I had not previously considered. |
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