Clark University

Founded in 1887, Clark is a small, private, liberal arts–based research university committed to scholarship and inquiry that address social and human imperatives on a global basis. Located in the heart of New England—Worcester, Massachusetts—Clark enrolls approximately 2,200 undergraduate and 1,000 graduate students.

Background

Clark University has long been committed to providing antiviolence education and prevention services. Over 30 years ago the Daybreak program, which is the most comprehensive domestic violence program in the Greater Worcester area, was founded on the Clark campus. The Rape Crisis Center of Central Massachusetts was started at Clark in 1973. Both programs are now separate organizations that work with the Clark University Anti-Violence Education (CAVE) program.

The CAVE program is supported by grants from the U.S. Department of Education and the U.S. Department of Justice. Its goal is to reduce dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking at Clark University through awareness and educational programs, most notably bystander intervention programs. It is a coordinated effort by several offices at Clark, including law enforcement, the dean of students office, women's studies, athletics, health care services, the counseling center, housing authorities, student life, the judicial board, intercultural affairs, deans of the graduate schools, and representatives from student government and other concerned student groups. This coordinated campus response team meets regularly to discuss policies, procedures, and programming on campus that are related to issues of dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking.

Clark Police Chief Stephen Goulet, who has been at the university for 28 years, credits students for Clark’s long-standing support for violence prevention services. “Our students are involved and engaged. They care passionately about this issue, and we have been able to incorporate that passion into what we do. We do violence prevention because it’s the right thing to do to help people both proactively and reactively. That’s the mind-set here of not only our students but of the faculty and staff as well.”

The CAVE program is directed by Professors Denise Hines and Kathleen Palm Reed from the Psychology Department. Palm Reed, who is clinical coordinator and research assistant professor in the Psychology Department, said that when she and Hines started at Clark, they realized they shared an interest in violence prevention. “It was striking when we started to put things together how much was being done separately across the campus in student organizations and different departments. Violence prevention was already a part of the campus culture. So what we’ve been able to do at CAVE is provide a place where everyone can talk together and consolidate our prevention efforts,” explained Palm Reed.

The primary goal of CAVE’s current Department of Education grant is to reduce sexual and dating violence at Clark University. Its specific goals are as follows: (1) Reduce sexual and dating violence on the college campus; (2) Increase knowledge and awareness of sexual and dating violence on campus; (3) Decrease adherence to harmful attitudes related to sexual and dating violence; and (4) Increase willingness and self-efficacy to help potential victims of sexual and dating violence. The components of the program include (1) implementation of a modified bystander prevention program, (2) development of a peer educator training seminar, (3) increased access to information regarding sexual and dating violence and services available to students, and (4) sustained educational programming.

According to Hines, the key for success in violence prevention is to get as many people involved as possible in a way that makes them feel connected. “We don’t want students to feel afraid. We want them to be empowered to make a difference by taking advantage of the antiviolence sentiment that already exists at Clark and bolster it up. We are doing that through programming such as Bringing in the Bystander program, a 120-minute program presented to incoming students during orientation. The program was developed at the University of New Hampshire. It both increases knowledge and decreases myths associated with rape and dating violence. It aims to increase feelings of being able to intervene to stop instances of dating violence and sexual assaults by increasing students’ willingness to get involved,” said Hines.

“There are several theories why Bringing in the Bystander works. One is just that it approaches the topic from a different stance. Instead of viewing people as potential perpetrators or victims and making them get defensive like, ‘I would never do that,’ or, ‘That wouldn’t happen to me,’ we approach them in terms of this could happen to somebody you know, somebody you’re friends with, a classmate of yours, and here are some things that you can do to help out the people that you’re friends with, that you go to class with, and so forth. That leaves them more open to the materials because they think, ‘I want to help my friends and I can see this happening to my friends, so I’m going to pay attention and figure out how to help,’ ” said Palm Reed.

Program Evaluation

Clark has been doing the Bringing in the Bystander program for two years and had an assessment of the Clark campus prior to starting the program. According to Hines, every year at the same time, CAVE conducts an anonymous survey of students that has shown a significant decline in dating violence, sexual assaults, and stalking since the start of the program.

In November 2008, Clark conducted a needs assessment examining the incidence of sexual assault, dating violence, and stalking during the first two months of the academic year. The 2008 needs assessment provided a baseline measure because it was conducted prior to the institution of any programming under the Department of Education or Department of Justice grants. This survey was administered again in November 2009 and November 2010. The November 2009 assessment was administered five months after the institution of the Bringing in the Bystander program, and the November 2010 survey, 17 months after the institution of the bystander program. The incidence of dating violence (DV), sexual assault (SA), and stalking continually decreased from 2008 to 2009 and from 2009 to 2010. Moreover, there were significant decreases in DV, SA, and stalking from the time before the program was instituted in 2008 to the current academic year.

Comparing freshmen from 2008, none of whom went through the bystander program, with freshmen from 2010, all of whom went through the bystander program, the needs assessment found that freshmen participants from 2010 were less likely to have been sexually assaulted or assaulted by a dating partner. These differences, however, were not significant, but trend in the right direction and the non-significant findings could be due to the small sample size and low base rates.

Recommendations

Chief Goulet credits collaboration as a key element in the success of CAVE. “When we meet regularly under the name of CAVE, we have representatives from housing, dean of students, athletics, university police, graduate students, and undergraduate students—all people who make the information reach out even further than those two-hour meetings. I think that it is important to identify people who can make a difference, and get them involved in a structure that allows us to practice what we preach,” he said.

Palm Reed agrees. “The advice I would offer is to make the effort collaborate broadly across the campus. I also recommend including students—particularly undergraduate students-—in the design of programming and in providing feedback. For example, in the past couple of years, we have found out about different kinds of Web sites that the students are going to or different types of drinking games that students are involved in that are really quite dangerous. If we didn’t have undergraduates involved with our efforts, we wouldn’t be able to warn them about some of these dangers in terms of how it affects sexual assault, stalking, and dating violence,” she said.

Information

To learn more about violence prevent at Clark University and the CAVE program, visit www.clarku.edu/offices/cave/.

Institution Characteristics:

Location: 

Worcester, Massachusetts

Enrollment: 

3,200

Governance: 

Private

Setting: 

Urban