University of Colorado students are hearing a new phrase on campus: Don’t ignore it. That’s the slogan for a new campaign drawing attention to resources for those who experience — or witness — sexual assault.
Teresa Wroe is with the office of institutional equity and compliance at CU Boulder. She says the new website replaces the “Report It” site — a static, one-page list of resources that may have been confusing to students. According to Wroe, the new page is easier to navigate.
“The website was designed to be kind of a one-stop shop for people to understand the resources and options that people have available to them,” she says.
CU rolled out the “Don’t Ignore It” campaign in March as part of the University’s continued commitment to educate the campus.
Colorado State University began a similar campaign two years ago called “Reframe.” Like CU’s efforts, It seeks to change how people talk about interpersonal violence and promotes teaching skills for intervention.
Carl Olsen is the Men’s Programming and Violence Prevention Coordinator at CSU. He says the campaign helps students who want to talk about their experiences, or who are looking for support.
“Reframe actually provides tools, skills, and language for students to be able to talk about interpersonal violence,” Olsen says.
He says since the campaign launched the amount of folks who have stepped forward to share their experience has sharply increased.
That’s true at CU as well. Wroe says reports have been going up.
But she acknowledges there is still a gap between what people are experiencing and what they’re reporting.
“We would like to close that gap more,” Wroe says, “but we also know that we’re not going to close it completely. Reporting isn’t for everyone — not everything can be reported — but we want to ensure that people are aware of what they might be able to do in terms of reducing these kinds of concerns.”
CU plans to do a big push for the campaign in the fall.
