Elizabeth Pulanco / Winonan

The beginning of a semester brings new schedules and new people into the lives of students. This year at universities across Minnesota, the beginning of fall semester brought training for sexual violence awareness and prevention.

The training for sexual violence awareness and prevention is now required for students within the Minnesota State school system after the passing of a law in 2015, which presents a mandate requiring the training.

Winona State University’s Title IX Coordinator Lori Mikl has been communicating with students and faculty about the training.

“The sexual violence course was developed by the systems office at Minnesota State,” Mikl said. “They adapted the course from one given at the University of Montana.”

Previous to the mandate, Winona State offered an optional course on sexual violence awareness, but this is the first year the training has been made mandatory.

“The statute requires that students complete the training within 10 days of the start of the academic semester which dictated the September 2 deadline,” Mikl said.

After the deadline, students who have not taken the course will have their registration placed on hold for the next semester until they take the course.

Hunter Beckstrom, a member of the RE Initiative, a student organization focused on educating the community on gender based violence, believed this deadline pushed students to finish the course quickly, rather than focus on the material.

“I think that it gives an incentive to bring the topic to light, but they don’t have an actual test or have a way to insure that students actually watch all the videos,” Beckstrom said. “It makes it seem like it is not as serious as it should be.”

The sexual violence awareness and prevention course was made available to students through their D2L accounts, which is an educational program used as a hub of communication between students, professors and universities.

The course is broken down into three modules, each featuring a video and an assessment at the end. When finishing the modules, students took a quiz, confirming their conclusion of the course.

Victoria Parke, another member of the RE Initiative, discussed her suggestions for the different modules.

“My biggest critique is that there is no real way to track if you actually did the module,” Parke said. “You can go through the assessment and print out the certificate and say you went through the training.”

Besides concerns with the layout of the course, other students have had comments about the content of the material discussed.

Michael Krug, a graduate assistant and member of the RE Initiative, had concerns with how the course discussed potential sexual assault victims.

“I think they tried to stay away from victim blaming, but they do try to educate people on what and how they should drink alcohol, which in itself is a form of victim blaming.”

Despite the concerns about content and formation of the course, students believe the program is a good start to decrease sexual assault rates.

“I think the general goal is giving everyone an idea of what active bystanders are, what these issues are and how to identify them on campus,” Parke said. “The goal in mind is very positive and something that is desperately needed. “

First year student Hayley Thomas thinks the course has the ability to make a great impact.

“It will help spread awareness and help protect a lot of students,” Thomas said.

With the work done by the RE Initiative, Winona State is also ahead of the curve with gender based violence awareness and prevention.

Three years ago, Winona State received a grant from the Department of Justice’s Office of Violence Against Women. This grant helped provide resources to implement the RE Initiative and other programs, like the PACT bystander intervention training and the gender based violence helpline.

“We went to the Minnesota Campus Sexual Violence Prevention Summit in June and it became very clear that we are far above many of the other schools in the state, as far as what we have been doing on campus, “ Mikl said.

According to Krug, the RE Initiative is working with schools across the region to help implement their programs.

“We are trying to partner up with other schools to get our PACT programming on to their campuses,” Krug said. “We have been working with Saint Mary’s and UW-La Crosse.”

As Winona State and Minnesota State make improvements toward their handling of sexual assault, the institutions realize there is still work to be done.

“As the Title IX coordinator, it would very nice to someday be out of a job because there are no

complaints,” Mikl said. “I know that is probably not possible, but that is sort of the utopian goal that someday men and women do not have to fear that they will be a victim of sexual violence.”