Consent Week, an annual event at Shepherd, is a campus-wide effort to increase awareness of sexual assault.
This year, rather than focusing exclusively on the mandatory training for campus Greek organizations, Delta Zeta President, Olivia Gill, worked with All Greek Council to expand the activities. Expanding the activities allows the message to reach a broader audience on campus.
Activities began on Monday, Feb. 13 with a student panel. Many individuals that were asked to be a part of the panel represented organizations such as Fraternity/Sorority Life or the Multicultural Leadership Team.
This panel opened the doors to conversations about placing boundaries, communication with sexual partners and sex education in schools.
During an extensive conversation with Mikayla Offutt, reflecting on the Consent Week panel, she provided additional insight on how she would like to see consent week continue to change. Mikayla said it is important to hold Consent Week because “people do not know what consent is, or how to communicate it.”
Following that Mikayla said it was “not effective in its current form because there is a lot of talk and discussion without action.”
Next year, for consent week Mikayla would like the planning team to “Focus it more on targeting male audiences rather than Greek organizations, particularly sports teams. Additionally, have a guy talk about sexual assault and consent.”
Consent week will return in the 2024 spring semester. The question is will the consent program see changes, taking into account feedback from attendees like Mikayla, or will it remain the same?
