By Britney Reynolds
Picture by Alicia Keene.
It is an increasing problem among college students.
The dynamics of college life, according to a report on sexual assault by the White House, appears to fuel the issue on campuses.
Autumn Shafer, a College of Media and Communication assistant professor at Texas Tech University, along with another professor and college administration have been focusing specifically on the issue. Shafer said they want to contribute to finding a solution.
“These are issues we are actively working on,” Shafer said. “We don’t have the complete solution yet, but we are investigating it and certainly have had students talk about these issues: alcohol, hooking up, and rape culture, here at Texas Tech.”
According to the White House report on sexual assault published in January, one in five women have been sexually assaulted while in college, and 58 percent of incapacitated rapes occur at a party.
The report revealed many survivors are victims of incapacitated assault – being sexually assaulted while drunk, under the influence of drugs, passed out, or otherwise incapacitated.
The report indicated offenders who drink prior to an assault are more likely to believe that alcohol increases their sex drive and are more likely to think a woman partaking in drinking signals she is interested in sex.
Shafer said similar results are found among Tech students and the party scene.
Picture by Alicia Keene.
“We definitely did find students who talked quite a bit about the role of alcohol in the hook-up culture here at Texas Tech,” Shafer said, “which I would imagine applies to many colleges and universities around the country.”
Emily Keller, a senior public relations major from Houston, said hearing the statement from the report made her uncomfortable.
“That is absolutely ridiculous,” Keller said. “You should check me on this, but I’m pretty sure alcohol actually decreases your sex drive.”
Keller said she is always a little uncomfortable going out on the weekends whether she is drinking or not because of the way guys perceive girls who go out.
Shafer said the government is pressuring state universities wanting to continue receiving governmental funding to look into and revise their policies.
Shafer, who is working on research regarding this issue, said the hope is that universities will step up and implement things to better protect students from sexual assault on campuses.
Lana Adcock, a senior media strategies major from Lubbock, said there are several things she thinks the university can do to better protect students.
“There needs to be more action,” Adcock said. “There needs to be some sort of whistle-blowing thing on our campus.”
Adcock said more emergency buttons are needed on campus and recommends having them in more beneficial places such as locker rooms and bathrooms.
The report revealed on average only 12 percent of student victims report assaults to law enforcement.
Adcock said there are reasons this average is so low.
“You don’t see anything good that comes from reporting it,” Adcock said, “and who are you going to tell?”
Keller said there is not enough awareness of where to go if an assault were to happen.
“I don’t think there’s enough information about it,” Keller said. “If it happened to me I wouldn’t know what to do.”
Keller said still more can be done to help.
“I think that there could be more events about it that is geared more towards college girls or just college in general,” Keller said. “So, if that does happen, we know what resources we have.”
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