{"id":19603,"date":"2020-06-08T10:08:35","date_gmt":"2020-06-08T17:08:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=19603"},"modified":"2020-06-08T10:11:38","modified_gmt":"2020-06-08T17:11:38","slug":"camosun-seeks-student-feedback-on-sexual-violence-and-misconduct-policy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2020\/06\/08\/camosun-seeks-student-feedback-on-sexual-violence-and-misconduct-policy\/","title":{"rendered":"Camosun seeks student feedback on Sexual Violence and Misconduct Policy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Camosun College is seeking student input on its Sexual Violence and Misconduct Policy. As part of the provincial Sexual Violence and Misconduct Policy Act, the college is required to review the policy every three years; Camosun vice president of student experience Heather Cummings says that when the policy was reviewed recently, they had aspects pointed out to them that could be strengthened to make it more student-focused. She talked with two students, members of the Camosun College Student Society, Camosun Student Affairs staff, and college security over the winter semester about how best to move forward with critiquing the policy.<\/p>\n

\u201cI really wanted to chat with the people who live and breathe the operationalizing of this policy,\u201d says Cummings. \u201cWhat are students telling us works and doesn\u2019t work? We really heavily relied on that feedback.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cummings says there was a lot of feedback on what works in the policy as well as feedback on what could be strengthened. Students for Consent Culture Canada, a national group that evaluates campus policies, said the college should use more of a trauma-informed approach.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Camosun vice president of student experience Heather Cummings (file photo).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cIt was removing language about fault support, because having that language assumes that there\u2019s a chance that someone\u2019s not telling the truth,\u201d says Cummings. \u201cThat\u2019s not supportive.\u201d<\/p>\n

The update also removed language about people\u2019s past sexual behaviour.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow is that relevant to the current situation?\u201d says Cummings.<\/p>\n

The college also focused on clarification of interim supports in the policy, to help students feel safe.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf two students are in the same class and there\u2019s been an allegation of violence, we may put some things in place to keep both of those students safe while we\u2019re figuring out the extent of the situation,\u201d says Cummings.<\/p>\n

The majority of the cases the college hears about are filed and dealt with on an informal level; in those situations, Cummings says people may just want \u201csome consideration, some compassion from the institution.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd that\u2019s what we do,\u201d she says. \u201cIn fact, that\u2019s the majority of the work that we do with respect to sexual violence management at the college. But if they make a formal report, they are requesting, then, some type of investigation into the matter. And it\u2019s at, honestly, the complainant\u2019s discretion; they decide.\u201d<\/p>\n

If a case does go to the police, Cummings says the college reserves the right to continue its investigation, and the policy clarifies what taking a complaint to the legal stages means.<\/p>\n

\u201cA police investigation is separate from the college,\u201d she says. \u201cWe are not engaged in that. If, though, there may be a situation where the police may ask us to suspend our investigation\u2014I\u2019m not sure if that\u2019s ever actually happened\u2014certainly, we would have to respect law enforcement.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cummings says that many of the complaints the college deals with do not happen in person; people are still learning how to behave with each other online, she says, and it\u2019s reasonable to think that a student could make a complaint without realizing it could be very upsetting for the person they are complaining about.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat would be part of our conversation, of, well, \u2018The person now knows, and they\u2019re apologetic and it won\u2019t happen again.\u2019 Then we\u2019ve sort of informally resolved that,\u201d she says. \u201cThat\u2019s where the college can be a really great resource for students.\u201d<\/p>\n

Part of that process is educating students, listening to complainants and respondents, and teaching students how to communicate, says Cummings.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s very important that students feel like our procedures and our policies in the college are student friendly\u2014that students see themselves, that a respondent sees themselves, reflected in this policy, and that there\u2019s supports for them. That a student who [is the] complainant feels like they\u2019re going to be in control, and they\u2019re going be believed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Students can view the policy at camosun.ca<\/a> and provide feedback by emailing Cummings at cummingsh@camosun.bc.ca<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Camosun College is seeking student input on its Sexual Violence and Misconduct Policy. As part of the provincial Sexual Violence and Misconduct Policy Act, the college is required to review the policy every three years; Camosun vice president of student experience Heather Cummings says that when the policy was reviewed recently, they had aspects pointed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":18999,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19603","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-webexclusive","category-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19603","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19603"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19603\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19606,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19603\/revisions\/19606"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18999"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19603"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19603"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19603"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}