A brand new semester kicked off this week for thousands of college and university students across the state. The last couple of years there has been a major emphasize on preventing campus sexual assaults. WBFO's senior reporter Eileen Buckley recently spoke with the SUNY Chancellor about the issue.
"Every one of our campuses is open access to what matters to the lives of students and if it’s in crisis, we need access, we need support,” stated SUNY Chancellor Nancy Zimpher.
Prevention has been the focus of information provided to students who arrive on the SUNY campuses across the state.
Back in January of this year Governor Andrew Cuomo announced a partnership with the New York State Health Department and SUNY to assist in helping students, faculty and staffers’ identity a sexual assault or interpersonal violence that could prevent a situation.
“I really think everyone is going to come back ready to sort of implement – who do I talk to? Where are those people? And it is on us to show them that we learned a lot about this process and we are ready to serve them, so in a way, this is a pilot year,” Zimpher explained.
The state's Enough is Enough law is considered one of the toughest in the nation in fighting back.
“You know when you live in the public domain, every issue that effects society finds its way into our doors. We’re so open. We catch everything, from a common cold to a sexual assault crisis, to what we spent a lot of time on last year, which was just diversity and opening our eyes and ears and listen,” Zimpher said.
With one in five woman are involved in campus sexual assaults, and one in 16-men attached while attending college, SUNY Chancellor Zimpher tells WBFO News she's in favor of working to reach younger students, perhaps in elementary school to begin prevention programs.
“So everything would be better if we started earlier and if we were mutually engaged in that early start, so yes, I’d be very much in favor of more collaboration on sexual assault, on safety, on issues of great concern, on cultural diversity, on inclusion – if it started earlier,” Zimpher noted.
The Enough is Enough initiative continues adding layers of awareness to the issue on campuses statewide. Recently the New York State Police joined in the awareness effort to battle this campus crime. An eight week campaign, sponsored by the State Police, includes radio, billboard and social media messaging.
“Sexual assaults on campus are happening at an alarming frequency. Acquaintance rape is a violent crime that too often goes unreported,” warned the recorded campaign radio ad.
11-state police senior investigators are now part of a unit in parts of the state to serve as resource for college and university campuses.
