news@dailylobo.com
@ArdeeTheJourno
An on-campus team that aims to prevent sexual assaults at UNM shifts into full gear this semester.
UNM’s Sexual Assault Response Team (SART) launched at the beginning of this semester and has put into place services and resources for victims of sexual assault at the University.
Women’s Resource Center Director Summer Little, who serves as one of the chairs of SART, said she worked with various organizations during the summer to form the team. Little said the University formed the team quicker than expected.
“This process to set up a SART usually takes a year or more,” she said. “We did it since May. We’re going to have some refining as we go along. But we feel confident that we have the basic components to serve students.”
Little said UNM formed the team to address sexual assaults that happened during the spring semester.
“We had incidences in the spring that were public,” she said. “It isn’t that we don’t have sexual assault on campus. It’s just happened that these few things were made aware to the public and helped everybody to come together to work on it.”
Two sexual assaults occurred on campus during the spring semester.
The first was Jan. 27, when two men allegedly sexually battered a female student at Johnson Field under her clothes. The second assault happened Feb. 4, when a man allegedly sexually battered a female student over her clothes near Castetter Hall.
SART welcomes students, faculty, staff and visitors who need help, regardless of gender, Little said.
Little said that through SART, sexual assault victims will have medical resources that will help them with recovery. She said UNM’s Student Health and Counseling will help with the medical component of the team. SART has also coordinated with the Albuquerque Family Advocacy Center for services regarding preventive contraception and forensic examinations.
SART will also offer counseling services in cooperation with various groups, such as the Rape Crisis Center of Central New Mexico, Little said.
Get content from The Daily Lobo delivered to your inbox
Regarding its law enforcement aspect, Little said SART will work with UNMPD. The police department has already trained five UNMPD officers to serve with SART, she said. And the dean of students’ office will conduct investigations regarding offenders’ violations of the University’s Student Code of Conduct.
But everything depends on a sexual assault victim’s decision as to what happens, Little said.
“This process is victim-centered and victim-controlled,” she said. “They can choose to talk to one person, or to three of them, or to all of them, or to none of them.”
Data gathered from these responding organizations will then be passed on to SART’s steering committee for analysis, Little said.
She said the committee will meet once every semester and will provide data regarding reported sexual assaults on campus.
“What we’re going to do with that data is to refine our prevention efforts,” she said. “If we see in those reports that there’s a particular area that we need to pay attention to on campus, then we can provide some extra prevention efforts.”
Little said the steering committee will meet at the end of the semester.
Dean of Students Tomas Aguirre, who is a member of SART, said he applauds the University’s “proactive steps.” He said his office will be in charge of ensuring student conduct at the University.
“Conduct reports to my office,” he said. “Whenever a sexual assault happens on campus, it’s going to be addressed through the disciplinary process. Being the students’ primary advocate, my role is really going out there and making sure that the pieces are coming together.”
Aguirre said he meets regularly with various departments on campus, such as Student Housing and Student Activities, to discuss ways to prevent sexual assault. He said he is also helping with the creation of the Civil Campus Council, a group spearheaded by UNM President Robert Frank to ensure harmonious interactions in the University community.
“I personally interpret sexual assaults as an act of incivility,” Aguirre said. “Hopefully that council would be able to create or develop some initiatives that … might reduce those numbers.”
And he is optimistic about SART, Aguirre said.
“Education is a key part of it,” he said. “I think that educational component that SART really promotes will make a really big difference.”
Little said the increase in the number of reported sexual assaults in the University is “absolutely a good thing.”
“It means our system is working better to support victims and to make them comfortable to report,” she said.
And she said she would strive to keep SART working in the future.
“Primarily what we need to see from SART is consistency, commitment and sustainability,” she said. “We don’t want this to be around for a semester or a year. We want it to be a permanent fixture.”
