"Dartmouth College has a problem."
It's a phrase students hear too often. And it's not uncommon to hear it applied to sexual assault at Dartmouth.
I set out to write this story with the opinion that sexual assault is a serious problem. Though the actual numbers of incidents of sexual assault are often difficult to track down, it would still be a problem if it only occurred to one person on one college campus per year. It's a problem at Dartmouth, certainly, but the question that doesn't seem to enter the discussion much is the extent and nature of the problem.
Dartmouth's annual crime disclosure, as required by the Clery Act, gives some hints about the scope of the problem on campus.
Named for a Lehigh University student who was raped and murdered in her dorm, the act stipulates that all colleges and universities must disclose the number of reported crimes on campus each year. Dartmouth's Clery disclosure reveals that there have been 29 reported cases of sexual assault on campus over the last three years.
Harvard reported 58 sexual assaults in the same period of time, Cornell reported 22, Yale reported 20, Princeton reported 18, The University of Pennsylvania reported 12, Columbia reported nine and Brown reported eight.
However, these numbers are not directly comparable because the schools are not the same size, and are given a degree of freedom to define what qualifies as sexual assault under the act, meaning that Dartmouth's definition of sexual assault is only specific to Dartmouth.
Leah Prescott, coordinator of Dartmouth's Sexual Abuse Peer Adviser program, expressed her lack of faith in this, or any, exact sexual abuse case count.
"It's hard to say exactly what is going on, but I definitely think that there's a possibility that, if everybody reported their assaults, it would be way over 50, possibly 100, or even more than that," Prescott said
Fifty-nine percent of sexual assaults go unreported according to the National Crime Victimization Survey, administered by a branch of the Justice Department, meaning that Prescott's estimate may be slightly overzealous.
Prescott says, however, that she keeps two sets of data regarding sexual assault on campus, one for the Clery report, which only pertains to acts on campus, and another set of data using much broader requirements. These numbers include incidents with no specified date or location, a requirement for Clery disclosure, and include incidents that occur off-campus, on Language Study Abroad programs, during spring break or before students even come to Dartmouth.
During our conversation, Prescott also said she applies the term "sexual assault" to everything ranging from human trafficking to "taunting," adding that "being called a 'bitch' can be construed as a form of sexual assault."
It is this second set of data, Prescott said, that she sees as more representative of the number of sexual assault victims, or survivors, at Dartmouth.
"Those are numbers that I may use in presentations, with either staff or faculty, or with students," she said. "Those may be numbers that I offer back to SAPAs so that when they are talking to or supporting survivors, they can give survivors the sense that they're not the only ones."
"I think one of the biggest misconceptions or perceptions of sexual assault for survivors is that this experience that they've had is an isolated incident," Prescott said. "Survivors have felt a sense of comfort, or maybe a sense of community, that there are more people who have experienced similar violence."
With this mentality, Prescott says that she prefers to receive higher numbers.
"Whenever my numbers go up, I have a level of relief, so to speak," she said. "What that says to me is that the services and support that we are offering is in a way people will find to be safe and confidential and supportive."
The goal of the SAPA program is to offer counseling to all victims of sexual assault. There are currently 23 active SAPAs on campus, though Prescott estimates that there are twice that number of fully trained inactive members. The organization is training about thirty more this term.
Alexandra Arnold '10, one of the two SAPA interns, said she believes the issue is important to many Dartmouth students, in part because of the fraternity system.
"Not to put blame on the frats, but I think the frat system is definitely part of the problem," Arnold said. "People associate beer with sexual assault and beer comes from the frats, so it's hard to separate the three issues."
Another difficulty in gaining a clear picture of the scope of sexual assault at Dartmouth is the SAPA program's dedication to confidentiality.
Prescott said that even if SAPAs receive reports of sexual assault from multiple victims perpetrated by one individual, the organization will not share information about the individual with the vicitm and keeps no formal record of the accused, as some colleges do.
"That's a hell of a lot of pressure on you to decide to save the rest of the campus from this person," Prescott said. "Not only is that a hell of a lot of pressure for you, but in that conversation I am also breaching the confidentiality of the other [victims]."
I asked Arnold if she thought sexual assault was a problem at Dartmouth.
"It's definitely a problem on college campuses," she said.
And at Dartmouth?
"And at Dartmouth," she added.
Most would agree. Though its possible solutions, like the details of its current state, remain somewhat hazy.
