By: Carly Lassa Sexual Assault is a problem on every college campus, but especially Penn State. We routinely get PSU alerts telling us of yet another sexual assault report. That is the reason that I chose to attend the deliberation on March 3rd about sexual assault held at Wester’s Bookstore and Café. When I arrived, there were many people there. I went to sign in and get my packet to follow along with the discussion. I also very much enjoyed the free refreshments including coffee, tea, and cookies. I sat down at a table with some other classmates and waited to start the deliberation.
The group leader got up and thanked us all for coming to the deliberation. Then she started by asking what we thought when we get the emails and texts from PSU alerts saying there is another sexual assault. Many people said they thought it was wrong and sad, and some were sort of not phased by it because we get them so often. She explained how awful it is that it has become part of the culture here at Penn State. After a few other statistics, we split up into a couple different groups with about 2-3 moderators in each group. We were introduced to each approach shortly after that. The first approach was talking about sexual assault and its relationship with alcohol. Alcohol usage and sexual assault go hand in hand. Parents often tell their children before going off to college that if they go out and party there should definitely be some rules to always follow. Some examples would be to never put your drink down in fear of someone drugging it. Another one would be to not drink the “jungle juice” also for fear of being drugged. While this is a real problem in today’s society, (especially college campuses) it would be beneficial to just teach everyone not to drug in the first place. That is an unrealistic thought, but definitely making education better would help out. The next approach was help available. The only help available we could think of provided by PSU would be SAFEWALK and the blue lights, but those are only on campus. We thought it would be helpful to include an interactive and interesting presentation about sexual assault within the entire curriculum for freshman seminars. That way we could get the facts out and make people more aware of the issue. We also discussed the “angel shot” or “ask for Angela” tactic being implemented in bars and clubs. If someone feels uncomfortable, they can ask the bartender for an “angel shot” and the bartender will know that they need help and are in danger. The final approach was bystander intervention. That was another thing we thought should be included in the education surrounding sexual assault because some people are afraid to step in to help. Definitely just being aware and knowing that stepping in and making sure people are okay, even if they are strangers, could help save someone’s life. The groups came together to do a final wrap up and discussed the ideas that we all had come up with. On the tables where we were sitting, they had small forms explaining the “angel shot” and “ask for Angela” tactics in case any of us knew of bars downtown that would gladly implement that sort of policy. They also had little yellow stars that we could sign our name on as a symbol to pledge against sexual assault and pledge to do whatever we can to stop it if we ever see it potentially happening. I thought that was a very cool idea and a very cool wrap up sort of exercise.
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By: Carly Lassa On March 1st, 2017, I walked into Webster’s Bookstore and Café at 6:45. As I walked down the stairs, I saw there were many people crowded by the stage, which I knew meant that they were there for the deliberation. Because the group presenting their deliberation was only four people, I offered my assistance to them. I helped point people in the right direction to the sign in sheet and also helped pass out name tags. Once everyone got all seated in their individual tables, the team leader started the introduction.
I was seated at the table on the stage. The team leader introduced the topic of Women’s Reproductive Rights and spoke to all the groups together. Then we separated into smaller groups to talk about their different approaches. The first approach was talking about the United States as a country should do about Women’s Reproductive Rights. It did get a little sticky with differing political beliefs especially when talking about abortion, but the conversation remained well mannered. My group talked about how there is a federal law stating that no state can make abortion illegal. However, that being said, states can still make it so hard to get that it is nearly impossible. Then this could potentially lead to women trying to get an abortion in a “back alley” way that could end up hurting the women as well. We spoke about different ways that this could try to be reformed. We thought it would be effective for the federal government to set a minimum amount of money that each state must put towards women’s health needs. Then each state could determine how much money to put towards women’s health as an individual. Personally, I thought that was a great conclusion that has the potential to be very effective. The second approach was talking about the state level. The whole point of the deliberation was to try to come to a conclusion to who should have control of women’s reproductive rights. An idea we talked about with the state approach was the fact that businesses are able to have women’s rights included in their insurance policies. With that being said, is that right or wrong and should states remain to have that right or not? While there was discrepancy between some people in the group, there was very nice conversation on both sides of the issue. One of the most interesting things I heard was that before an abortion, the state requires the women to get counseling. However, after the abortion the counseling is not required. Most women need counseling after they have an abortion so if the state funded a therapist both before and after, it could help women with the emotional burden of getting an abortion. The last approach we talked about was each individual having their reproduction rights custom to their bodies. Most people agreed that each person should be able to control what happens to their own body and they just need the resources available to them. After about an hour and fifteen minutes of conversation, the smaller groups were brought back together into one big group to discuss their findings. Each group contributed a few ideas to be written down for each approach. The final thoughts were suggesting that if we felt strong about the issue, we should go out into the community and do something about it. They gave information like phone numbers of senators and other information of clubs on campus that are related to the issue. It was a successful deliberation and really got people talking. By: Carly Lassa On February 27th, I attended a deliberation held in the attic of a church on College Avenue in State College, PA. Walking into the deliberation, the group definitely had not accounted for the number of people that were going to be there. It was a small room and more people had shown up than they had anticipated. They quickly got more chairs and tried to form into one large group. However, there were so many people that a few were left outside of the circle. Those people did not speak very much throughout the deliberation and I think part of it was definitely the seating arrangement. The group did not accommodate very well and therefore accidently gave off the impression that those few people on the outside did not have an opinion of importance. There were donuts and coffee which was a nice little snack for all of the students attending.
They started off by introducing themselves. Then they went around the circle and asked all of our names and why we had decided to come out to the deliberation that night. Personally, I am interested in the topic of underage drinking and party culture because it is such a huge part of the Penn State lifestyle. So, I introduced myself and explained why I was interested in the topic of how to stop binge drinking. Once everyone went around and said their personal stakes, they began with their introduction. They opened with interesting statistics about the number of students that drink at Penn State on any given weekend. That gave them a nice Segway into how partying on the weekend can quickly turn into a dangerous trip to the Emergency Room. We continued into their first approach, which was the idea to make the rules regarding drinking more relaxed. The logic behind this was that a lot of students drink because it is a thrill and being rebellious is what college students do best. If Penn State were to become a “wet campus” and allow alcohol on campus as well as make the rules more relaxed, they suggested it might actually make the risky drinking behavior of students go down. If the rules are no longer so strict, students may not find drinking as attractive as they did before which in correlation would bring the amount of binge drinking down. Now this is only an idea but the group as a whole discussed it. We agreed that we thought implementing more relaxed rules would actually probably have a positive effect on Penn State’s campus in the long run. However, in the short run, students would most likely take advantage of the relaxed policies and “go crazy.” Then we spoke about leaving the policies just the way they are right now. As we talked, we all came to the conclusion that if just leave the policies alone, nothing will change. The whole point of a deliberation is to get people talking about change and differences they can make in their communities. Their third approach was to make policies stricter on campus and down town about alcohol use. As we discussed, we all came to the conclusion that making policies stricter would probably not make a positive difference unless the policies were so strict that it could hurt the future of a student forever. The idea came up that stricter policies might even provoke students to go and drink more just because they like the thrill of rebelling against authority. Because we were in a large group the entire time, there wasn’t really a need for a recap of everything we talked about because we were all present for all ideas. I think that group definitely would have got more people involved if they had a better set up. There were also only about 4 people talking the entire time, so they dominated the conversation. Overall, it was interesting but logistically could have been set up better. |
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