Student Government Association Holds Sexual Respect Week on Campus

When the Student Government Association (SGA) started discussing important topics to address at the beginning of the 2019 fall semester, one word kept coming up: respect. "In conversations among all branches — judicial, council, Senate — we wanted to highlight sexual respect and what that really looks like on a campus and really what it looks like to form healthy relationships with our peers, faculty and staff," says Delaney Wells '20, a religious studies major with a concentration in peace and conflict studies and Chief of Staff for the SGA.

The SGA collaborated with partners on campus, including the Title IX office, the Chaplains' office and the counseling center, to create Sexual Respect Week — a week of programming that, as Wells says, "engages in what it means to be students at a Jesuit school who really feel this responsibility and commitment to being respectful to one another."

Opportunities for students to engage throughout the week included an open discussion on consent with Title IX expert Jodi Shipper; multiple productions of The Vagina Monologues; a conversation facilitated by the Chaplains' office centered on campus healing; and a Valentine's Day breakfast with discussions on what love means to different people.

And the hope is the conversation will last long beyond one week.

Wells says, "It's great to hear from different perspectives about what it looks like to be responsible for one another. We hope to incorporate that input throughout the whole semester and the whole year."