Sexual violence survey findings don't shock administrators

For those familiar with sexual violence research, the American Association of Universities’ recent survey findings were not surprising.

“There hasn’t been any great shock,” Director of the Penn Women’s Center Litty Paxton said. “I think for folks who have never paid attention to this issue, the survey data is jarring.”

The data confirms previous research on why students underreport sexual violence, Director of Student Sexual Violence Prevention Jessica Mertz said.

While the findings are important, administrators say they don’t tell the full story.

“The data are just points,” LGBT Center Senior Associate Director Erin Cross said. “It’s kind of a composite person or people, so we don’t know the actual lived experiences.”

“We’ve always wanted to have our efforts and our programming and our response methods be guided by students’ experiences more than data or what’s in the national media,” Mertz said.

Administrators also focus on the holistic campus culture when evaluating Penn’s results as compared to other schools.

“The schools in this survey range in terms of size in terms of culture, in terms of location, so you can’t just do a straight up comparison,” Associate Vice Provost for Student Affairs Hikaru Kozuma said.

“I don’t think there’s a big enough discrepancy in any of the big numbers that we’re looking at to make any of those judgments,” Jessica Mertz said about comparing Penn’s numbers to the average.

While those interviewed said they will use the data to inform their work, they consider it just as important to consider the student experiences. That said, the survey’s release has already started conversations about changes across campus.

At the Women’s Center, Paxton and her team have met with their student groups during their weekly meetings.

“Because they’ve been at the forefront of advocacy, we wanted to check in with them and ask, how are you doing, how are you interpreting the headlines, do you have any questions,” Paxton said. “We wanted to begin with our most devoted student advocates on this issue and make sure they didn’t have any burning questions, and then those conversations will fan out a little bit, talking to student leaders more broadly, engaging them as we continue to sift through what is a pretty rich data set.”

Similarly, at the LGBT Center, Cross said they had “been talking more individually with students, if they have any questions, and we honestly have not had that many yet.”

She also mentioned that students and LGBT Center staff were pleased with the inclusion of a “transgender, genderqueer or non-conforming, questioning or not listed” category in the survey.

According to Mertz, Kozuma, Cross and Paxton, the data serves best to spark a conversation, rather than as the final word. They hope the visibility of the survey will lead to increased awareness.

“Something like this can open their eyes a little bit and inspire them to think about how they can be part of a solution which will be good for us and good for Penn moving forward,” Mertz said, referring to Penn students at large.

“It’s our work and business to be able to dive into these important social issues, and that’s why you’re going to see a lot the tension stemming from higher education institutions versus other fields or other industries,” Kozuma said.

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