Ladies, if you want to defend yourself against a male sexual aggressor, you have exactly two options: grab him by the genitals and twist, or gouge out his eyes. Well, that’s what Safety and Security sergeant Rebel Roberts was instructed back in her own college days, and the advice didn’t sit well with her. Roberts recognized that while these certainly were two options, they were by no means the only two. And Roberts worried the this-or-that presentation horrified and alienated many of the other women in the room.
That day, Roberts took away a renewed sense of purpose and a resounding message: “We need to do more.”
And so she has. Today, Roberts stands behind three decades of consistent, substantial change that she has wrought at Dartmouth. When she arrived at the College in 1983, there was little appreciation for how to construct buildings with safety in mind, no campus blue-light system and no rape aggression defense courses.
Roberts works primarily as a sergeant for Safety and Security, and she has special training as a certified sexual assault and bias-based crime investigator. For her position, Roberts must rush to the scene of an incident right after it is reported, which draws her back to campus at all hours of the night and frequently necessitates overtime work. Additionally, Roberts acts as the unofficial liaison to Dartmouth Emergency Medical Services, a student-run and student-staffed life support unit that responds with Safety and Security to medical emergencies on campus.
Although Roberts has an office in the Safety and Security campus headquarters, her typical day is anything but static. While supervising patrol, Roberts circuits all of campus, including affiliated buildings and properties like Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center and the organic farm. Roberts’s role as supervisor also requires her to oversee all the reports Safety and Security files during her shift, but other than that, she has freedom to choose where to offer assistance. Roberts might check in on a call and provide backup, oversee events on campus or stop along the route if she finds an individual in need of help — more likely, though, she’ll find a student who looks like they could use a ride and invite them to hop in.
In the hour we spent together, Roberts transported four individuals to three different destinations, all in the midst of overseeing a vehicle accident report and responding to a student who had received a laceration near the Class of 1953 Commons.
“This is a job where you can’t really plan your day,” she said.
Roberts has also worked extensively with Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design to reshape campus with safety in mind. In conjunction with CPTED, she drove the effort to install and expand the blue light system in the late 1990s. Roberts also oversaw and corrected the blueprints of the Class of 1978 Life Sciences Center, ensuring that everything from the placement of windows and lights to the physical orientation of the building gives students a clear vantage point so that a potential attacker cannot approach unseen. Other projects with CPTED included installing ample lighting down Tuck Drive and regulating the placement and size of decorative hedges on campus, especially those beneath ground-floor windows, so that predators cannot take cover in bushes.
With Roberts’s deep love comes shared joy, but also shared suffering. Although Roberts has seen and engendered substantial success, it’s difficult to see that positivity when you’re knee-deep in sexual assault investigation, Roberts said. No matter what, she said, there’s never a good ending when it comes to responding to sexual assault.
“My faith and the people that I’m close with really mean everything to me,” she said. “I would say that those are the two things that really get me through.”
And Roberts’s primary concern isn’t her own well-being. Throughout her efforts, Roberts has generally found positive and productive relationships across campus and the community.
“I think everybody has a wish list of what would be their ideal, perfect way to solve problems,” Roberts said. While her own wish list has not been fully completed, “some of the things that I have to say have been listened to and addressed,” she said.
Her humility, as colleagues say, is part of what makes Roberts so invaluable to the individuals whose lives she has changed and to the Dartmouth community at large.
Since joining the Dartmouth community, the College has quietly driven change from behind the scenes without drawing a lot of attention to herself, said philosophy professor Susan Brison, who arrived at Dartmouth two years after Roberts in 1985.
“She’s strong and powerful like a woman in Safety and Security should be, but she’s also very approachable, and very warm and kind,” Brison said. “That’s a difficult combination to achieve.”
In the past, Brison has taught women’s and gender studies courses that address sexual violence, and she and Roberts have collaborated over the years on various sexual assault committees.
Brison cites starting the rape aggression defense classes for physical education credit in 1996, which continue at the College to this day, as one of Roberts’s most notable accomplishments.
“It’s no secret that at the time, the administration did not want to allow women to do this,” Brison said, explaining how some administrators saw the gender-exclusivity of the course as a violation of Title IX. But Brison said that, as a recent sexual assault survivor at the time, she felt more comfortable learning defense techniques in a female-friendly environment.
RAD, an international program that teaches both physical self-defense and strategies to reduce vulnerability and avoid risky situations, began as a rape prevention program for women. Today, offshoot programs such as RAD for men, children and seniors also exist, but at Dartmouth, Roberts only officially teaches “RAD for Women” as a course for PE credit.
Roberts has also offered the course through various campus organizations. During her sophomore fall, Brittany Garcia ’11 took “RAD for NAD,” organized through the Native Women’s Group.
“What struck me about Rebel was, she looks really sweet,” Garcia said. “But then when she starts teaching you in RAD, she just changes into this really fierce momma-bear-type person.”
For Garcia, what began as a student-instructor relationship with Roberts evolved into something deeper when, during a class demonstration, Garcia’s long-suppressed memories of her own sexual assault came rushing back.
Garcia had volunteered to help Roberts demonstrate how to get out from underneath an attacker while lying in bed or on the ground, unaware of the physical and emotional reaction that being in the position would elicit.
“The moment she crawled on top of me, those memories resurfaced,” Garcia said. “I didn’t know what was going on at the time. I got really anxious and felt like I was going to panic for some reason, and I didn’t know why.”Roberts felt Garcia tense up and rolled off, Garcia said. As the details and emotions associated with the memories returned, Garcia’s personal turmoil escalated. Over the next two years, Roberts proved instrumental in not only supporting Garcia as she sought resources at the College, but also encouraging her to take a medical leave to “heal, away from Dartmouth,” Garcia said.
As Garcia finishes up her last term as a Dartmouth student, she has observed significant campus changes, which, in large part, she attributes to Roberts’ advocacy efforts.
“The Dartmouth I’ve come back to, I feel like it’s much more aware of sexual assault and violence,” Garcia said.
Roberts emphasizes the need for students to feel comfortable coming forward to faculty and staff at the College. After working as the interim Sexual Assault Awareness Program coordinator in 2008, Roberts recognized and acted on a need for an additional SAAP coordinator.
These days, it feels more and more like survivors of sexual violence can come forward without shame, fear or being rebuffed by the community, Garcia said.
Jennifer McGrew ’13, the community outreach coordinator for the Center for Professional Development, also came away from Roberts’s course with much more than self-defense education. McGrew said that taking RAD enabled her to speak about sexual assault to others — a stark contrast with her former discomfort discussing the issue, which she said stemmed from her experience as a survivor.
“I thought it was a battle I had to tackle myself,” McGrew said.
Working with Roberts in RAD empowered McGrew openly to fight against and raise awareness about sexual assault.
McGrew and Roberts developed a friendship beyond the classroom and even discovered a shared passion for photography. As a graduation gift, Roberts shot McGrew’s senior photos.
Roberts’s compassion and concern has not gone unnoticed by Matt Sattler, ’14, director of training for Dartmouth EMS, who has worked with and learned from Roberts since freshman year. Sattler said Roberts organizes casual dinners between Safety and Security and EMS to facilitate a strong relationship between the officers and the students.
Ariel Low ’14, who also met Roberts through Dartmouth EMS, echoed this appreciation for Roberts’s constant and genuine compassion.
“Rebel, every time you see her, she gets a big smile,” Low said. “It’s rare that you meet someone who has that big of a heart, that they can really care about all the students they meet.”
Even if the majority of students do not recognize or interact with Roberts on a personal level, she has made a lasting impact on those that have.
“I think anyone who ever met her is never going to forget her,” Sattler said.
Roberts said she consistently attends and supports events such as Take Back the Night and #NoFilter because she values the relationships she has formed with individual students so highly. Roberts’s presence at these events has proven to students the importance of attending empowerment events for victims and survivors, Low said.
As far as resources go, Roberts would like to see more of everything — from education on risk reduction and self-defense to more support for survivors, both in the immediate and long-term aftermath of a sexual assault. Roberts also hopes to work toward a larger variety of viable social options for the evenings, which would include adding more food venues on campus, more diverse social options and extending the hours of facilities such as the gym later into the night.
“It’s my hope that everyone in this community is respectful and caring toward one another,” Roberts said. But, she said, holding people accountable to the hurt they cause others is also important.
For Roberts, a happy ending will not emerge until sexual assault ceases to be a problem on campus. Until then, Roberts’s unflagging compassion continually drives her forward.
“I’m one person doing the best I can, for what I hold dear in my heart,” Roberts said.
