Penn State received a sexual assault prevention grant from Pa. Here’s what it’ll do
Penn State was one of 26 colleges and universities awarded grants totaling $1 million through Gov. Tom Wolf’s “It’s On Us” initiative to prevent campus sexual assault.
“Every student, teacher, administrator and visitor to our campuses deserves a safe environment free from harassment,” Wolf said in a news release. “This is the fourth year that my administration will be working with students, schools and communities to build programs to raise awareness about and stop sexual assaults. We must never tolerate this behavior on our campuses or a culture that allows it.”
Penn State will receive a $30,000 grant to educate its students about sexual violence and assault.
Penn State has received grants from “It’s On Us” in the past, including $30,000 in 2016, which enabled the university to create a series of videos aimed at sexual assault prevention and response.
This year’s grant will focus on translating Penn State’s series of “It’s On Us” videos into six languages aimed at international student populations — Arabic, Mandarin, Korean, Spanish, French and Malay.
The university’s grant application said, according to university data, international students report sexual violence and misconduct two to three times less than domestic students. By translating the videos into different languages, Penn State hopes to “show the non-native English speaking community that we are here to support them and that we are prepared to help them navigate both their cultural concerns as well as help them connect with resources available to them.”
In 2018, according to Pennsylvania Uniform Crime Act data, Penn State’s University Park campus had 45 reported rapes and two attempted rapes. That year, there were 29 other sex offenses reported on-campus.
As of fall 2019, the University Park campus had an international student enrollment of 7,636. Overall, international students made up 12.2% of Penn State’s total population, including Commonwealth campuses.
Since the “It’s On Us” program began in 2016, the program has put more than $4 million into universities so they can create campus-wide training, institutional campaigns to raise awareness of the sexual assault reporting process and resources to survivors of sexual violence, said Executive Director Tracey Vitchers in a press release.
In Centre County, South Hills School of Business and Technology also received a grant for $14,044 to put toward preventing sexual assault.
Last July, Wolf signed legislation that requires post-secondary institutions to offer students online, anonymous reporting options for sexual assault. Many of this year’s grant recipients, according to the Governor’s Office, will use their grants to administer those systems, which must be in place by the end of June.
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