Office of Equal Opportunity

The survey measures the prevalence of and attitudes about sexual misconduct among undergraduate and graduate students at Brandeis. It also assesses student awareness of prevention and response services on campus, and will be used to guide improvements in these areas.

The anonymous and voluntary survey was sent electronically to all Brandeis students in April 2015. This was the first time Brandeis conducted such a survey. We plan to repeat it every other year, alternating with the National College Health Assessment survey that is also conducted every other year.

The overall response rate at Brandeis was 34.3 percent, or 1,856 students.

• Forty-four percent of female undergraduates, and 33 percent of male undergraduates responded to the survey.

• Almost 23 percent of female graduate students, and 20 percent of male graduate students responded to the survey.

By comparison, the Association of American University reported that their survey response rate was 19.3 percent; Harvard’s was 53 percent; MIT’s was 35 percent; Boston University’s was 22 percent; and Tufts University’s was 28.7 percent.

All undergraduate students enrolled at Brandeis at least 18 years old were invited to take the survey electronically. In addition, all graduate students in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS), the Heller School for Social Policy and Management, and the International Business School, were invited to participate in the anonymous survey.

Over the past few years, Brandeis has implemented a comprehensive approach to understanding, preventing and responding to sexual misconduct on campus.

• The Title IX response team meets weekly to discuss cases of sexual misconduct and to ensure that students who have reported sexual assault are receiving consistent support from the university.

• A Task Force for Sexual Assault, Response, Services and Prevention was created in 2014 to review the university’s policies and practices regarding sexual misconduct response, implementation of policies, education of the community, and training protocols. There are 25 members, including students, staff and faculty.

• In 2015, Brandeis opened a Rape Crisis Center under the supervision of the Office of Prevention Services. There are three fulltime professional staff members affiliated with the Center — Sheila McMahon, Sexual Assault Services and Prevention Specialist; Julia Rickey, Survivor Advocate and Education Specialist; and Dr. Kristin Huang, trauma counselor. The Center will begin offering 24/7 response in October 2015.

• Since November 2013, Brandeis has added four professional staff to support Title IX efforts, with expertise in sexual assault services and prevention, Title IX investigations and psychological counseling. A fifth team member will be joining the staff during the fall of 2015.

• Over the last two years, sexual assault prevention specialist Sheila McMahon has spearheaded bystander intervention programs for all students in Fall and Spring Orientations, including training 100 students in a “train the trainer” model of bystander education. So far, 1,000 students, including members of the Student Union, Student Events, most sororities and fraternities, and all incoming varsity athletes have received this training.

• All new students attend “Speak About It,” a theater performance on campus sexual misconduct, consent and bystander intervention, followed by small group discussion.

• All incoming and returning students were provided online training in 2015.

• All faculty and staff are required to complete an online training on how to prevent, recognize and respond to sexual misconduct. There is a 98 percent compliance rate for this training. The online training is supplemented by in-person Title IX training.

• Brandeis provides additional Title IX training and professional development for public safety officers and members of the Task Force for Sexual Assault, Response, Services and Prevention.

• All resources, education and prevention materials — as well as information on how to file a complaint — are available on the Sexual Misconduct and Title IX Website, and are available to everyone in the Brandeis community.

• Brandeis offers prevention education on topics such as alcohol use and healthy relationships.

• In the summer of 2015, Rights and Responsibilities (the code of conduct handbook for students) was rewritten to include recommendations from the Task Force as well as inclusion of best practices in the adjudication of sexual misconduct cases.

Brandeis will use what it learned in the Campus Climate Survey to help identify our most effective — and least effective — services, and what we need to do to achieve universal awareness of prevention and support services. There are several additional steps planned, including:

• Incorporating yearlong residence hall programming on sexual violence prevention, intervention, healthy relationships and consent.

• Developing workshops on bystander intervention and effective consent and healthy relationships. These workshops will be available throughout the year and mandatory for all student leaders and athletes.

• Extending Title IX training to include all new graduate students. The sexual assault prevention specialist is collaborating with program directors to develop training programs, survey tools and response protocols.

• Developing Public Service Awareness (PSAs) campaigns to enhance students’ awareness of the available resources on campus.

The Office of the Provost and the Office of Students and Enrollment cosponsored the survey.

The university’s Task Force for Sexual Assault Response, Services and Prevention was instrumental in shaping and developing the survey. The Task Force, created in 2014 has 25 members, including faculty, students and administrators.

• Kim Godsoe, Associate Provost for Academic Affairs, co-chair

• Sheryl Sousa ‘90, Senior Associate Vice President for Student Affairs, co-chair

• Jamele Adams, Dean of Students

• Jessica Basile, Director of Graduate Student Affairs

• Lisa Boes, Dean of Academic Services

• Bernadette Brooten, Myra and Robert Kraft and Jacob Hiatt Professor of Christian Studies

• Sam Daniels ‘16, student

• Peter Kalb, Cynthia L. and Theodore S. Berenson Associate Professor of Contemporary Art

• Darren Gallant, Study Abroad Advisor

• Monique Pillow Gnanaratnam, Assistant Dean of Students

• Victoria Jonas ’15, student

• Michael LaFarr, Executive Director of Health and Wellness

• Conor Lanahan ’16, student

• Susan Lanser, Professor of English, Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies, and Comparative Literature

• Karen Lengler ’16, student

• Janet McIntosh, Associate Professor of Anthropology

• Sheila McMahon, Sexual Assault Services and Prevention Specialist

• Bette Reilly, Lieutenant, University Police

• Linda Shinomoto, Director of Employment and Employee Relations; Title IX Coordinator

• Rebecca Tillar, Esq., Title IX Investigator/Compliance Officer

• Rebecca Torrey, Assistant Professor of Mathematics

• Timothy Touchette, Director of Community Living

• Brendan Weintraub ’16, student

• Elyse Winick, Rabbi, Interfaith Chaplaincy

• Steven S. Locke, Esq., General Counsel, ex-officio

Over the past few years, there has been a growing national discussion about the issue of sexual misconduct at our nation’s universities. It was triggered in part by a “Dear Colleague Letter” issued in April 2011 by the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) in the U.S. Department of Education on student-on-student sexual harassment and sexual violence. The letter explains a school’s responsibility to respond promptly and effectively to sexual violence against students in accordance with the requirements of Title IX. Title IX is a federal civil rights law that prohibits discrimination based on sex in education programs and activities that receive federal funding. Discrimination on the basis of sex can include sexual harassment or sexual violence, such as rape, sexual assault, sexual coercion, sexual exploitation, stalking and intimidation.

In April 2014, the White House Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assault recommended that all colleges and universities conduct campus climate surveys to assess the scope of sexual violence issues on their campuses. Guided by White House Task Force recommendations, the Brandeis campus-wide Task Force for Sexual Assault, Response, Services and Prevention Title IX Task Force developed the survey with input from the Provost’s Steering Committee on Diversity.

Brandeis chose to develop and conduct its own entirely voluntary and anonymous survey questionnaire in order to customize questions and include all Brandeis students (undergraduate and graduate) in the survey. By conducting our own survey we now have baseline data that can be used as comparison with future surveys.

Of the 62 member universities of the AAU, 27 chose to use the AAU survey. Collectively, surveys were sent to a sample of 779,170 of all students in these 27 universities and responses were received from approximately 150,000 students.

The Brandeis survey was developed with guidance from “Not Alone: The First Report of the White House Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assault,” issued in April 2014. The Brandeis survey is consistent with best practices for assessment in this area. The survey used only validated measures to ensure that questions are consistent with and comparable to similar surveys done at other institutions, and that our data can be compared to peer institutions.