Last Friday, students and staff came together to discuss ways to prevent sexual assault on campus.

Room 240A in McKenzie Hall was brimming with enthusiasm and passion as panel discussion leader Monica Nunan commenced the Safe Ride sponsored event, Let’s Talk About It.

“It’s hosted by Safe Ride and a part of SAAM,” explained Nunan. “It’s an open discussion panel to talk about the ongoing efforts and resources available for sexual violence prevention and education. We have different departments represented and student groups represented.”

A panelist, Michel De La Cruz, feels that one of the issues with sexual assault is labeling someone as “survivor” or “victim”. “Some people just prefer not to label their experience. It’s like, ‘something happened to me and it didn’t feel right’. They don’t want to have a label because of something that they experienced,” De La Cruz said.

Bias response team case manager, Eric Braman, says that one of the most important concepts of the day was that these types of discussions are important for everyone, not just survivors of sexual assault.”I think there was a great conversation of, ‘how do I get people to feel passionate about this when they don’t care?’ And I think that it’s finding the ways that people can connect to it that is personal to them.”

The audience, which unfortunately didn’t fill the room, was very engaged yet pointed to the lack of students interested in the event.

Audience member Julia Baltino gave her thoughts on the poor attendance. “I think because it’s such a big campus and there’s so many groups doing this work that students may not know about the breadth of ways to get involved and ways to get support. I’m bummed there weren’t more students here.”

Sexual Assault Awareness Month continues next week with events such as Coalition for Consent and Take Back The Night.