College is usually thought of as a time where students, often living alone for their first time, are encouraged towards healthy risk-taking behavior, as well as social, intellectual, and vocational development. Unfortunately for female students, college becomes the time of their lives where they are exposed to the highest risk of sexual victimization. Many colleges across America have taken steps to address the significant problem of sexual assault on their campuses. However, even with rising concern about the sexual victimization of college students, there remains very little systematic information published about the content of sexual assault policies, protocols and programs that exist on college campuses. Focusing on the seven schools of the Oregon University System (OUS), this study sought to examine the schools' sexual assault policies, as well as their prevention and response efforts to sexual assault. Additionally schools' willingness for assistance and training from Oregon Sexual Assault Task Force (OSATF) was also studied. Specifically, official school sexual assault policies were content analysis and secondary survey data gathered by the OSATF was examined. Results demonstrated that, in most cases, policies of the OUS schools were vague in their definitions of what constituted a sexual assault, and lacked the additional information necessary for victims to respond to their sexual victimization. However, Universities also offered various forms of educational opportunities and awareness raising activities. While this proves promising, there is clearly room for improvement. OUS schools also appeared willing to work with the OSATF to improve the delivery of their sexual assault prevention services. The findings of this thesis are important in directing future actions of the OUS when developing and implementing sexual assault response and prevention strategies.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:pdx.edu/oai:pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu:open_access_etds-1280 |
| Date | 01 January 2011 |
| Creators | Murphy, Michael William |
| Publisher | PDXScholar |
| Source Sets | Portland State University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | Dissertations and Theses |
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