A few Sundays ago, my sorority hosted a 20:1 Sexual Assault Prevention and Bystander Intervention presentation. 20:1 is a group made up of Binghamton University students who educate other students about the issue of sexual assault and how to prevent it on college campuses. Going into the presentation, I was curious about what this group of students like myself could offer, so that I might understand sexual assault better.
The group didn’t disappoint. One exercise allowed us to place ourselves in the role of a sexual assault victim and empathize with them. It was followed by a truly eye-opening discussion.
The 20:1 title stands for the statistic that roughly 20 women are sexually assaulted in the United States every hour. That’s equivalent to 480 women assaulted each day.
Those on college campuses are at an even higher risk than others; 23.1 percent of female undergraduate students and 5.4 percent of male undergraduates experience rape or sexual assault through physical force, violence or incapacitation at some point during their college career.
These statistics, however horrifying, are crucial to our understanding of what constitutes sexual assault and how to prevent it in any way we can.
Some of the most effective ways college students can understand and combat sexual assault are through education, knowing what community or campus resources exist for those affected by sexual assault and, most importantly, being proactive bystanders in concerning situations that could lead to dangerous encounters. Every BU organization should mandate that their members be given the tools to address scenarios like these, as they happen all around us.
It’s a huge step in the right direction that these presentations have recently become a mandatory part of BU’s freshman orientations, but there is more that can be done by organizations on campus.
While it states on its Facebook page that the 20:1 presentations are specifically targeted to “men’s programming in Greek Life and Athletics with regards to the issue of sexual assault prevention,” why isn’t every single organization required to host a 20:1 presentation? This may sound extreme, but almost every student here is involved in some type of club, social or professional fraternity or sorority or team. If every organization was required to host a 20:1 presentation, this information could be dispersed to a huge portion of BU’s student body.
Being such large and prevalent forces on this campus, BU’s organizations have the opportunity to truly make a difference if each one of their members was armed with the knowledge that could potentially help save someone’s well-being, or even someone’s life.
Giovanna Bernardo is a senior double-majoring in English and political science.