Paying for college:
Abby's House, Student Health and Counseling, University Housing, Student Conduct, Office of the Dean of Students, Office of Student Affairs, Campus Public Safety, Athletics, Office of Disability Services, and The Research Institute.
September 2019 marks the end of nine years’ worth of coordinated comprehensive response and prevention to gender-based violence at Western Oregon University (WOU). For three grant cycles, the WOU CASA (Campus Against Sexual Assault) program has effectively and efficiently utilized federal funds to provide critical prevention and response services to WOU students, staff, and faculty. Due to the program’s innovations and success, WOU is the only campus accepted for three grant cycles. While that is an incredible feat, campuses are only allowed three grant cycles. This presents a problem of how to confirm students, staff, and faculty continue to receive comprehensive gender-based violence prevention and response. Throughout the 9-year period, WOU has institutionalized many important functions provided by the grant such as a professional position at Abby’s House (to be a full-time position next year), New Student Week Sexual Violence Prevention speaker and programming, mandated sexual violence online module for new students, responsible employee trainings for staff and faculty (including student employees) among many others. From all accounts, the WOU CASA program has truly shifted campus culture. The question which remains; how can that culture survive if the key element holding together disappears? The short answer is it cannot. Unfortunately, the most critical aspect provided by the grant that has yet to be institutionalized is the project director position along with a training and prevention budget. This is a position large enough that current staff or departments cannot absorb it. The project director currently leads the WOU CASA steering committee and subcommittees, coordinates prevention, response, and trainings, and manages data collection and strategic planning. While these may seem like small tasks, each role precipitates larger changes within the fabric of WOU. The only way to confirm cost effective gender-based violence prevention and response is to fund this position along with its training and prevention budget. Currently the WOU CASA grant pays for not only the project director position but also has a training and prevention budget as well. This proposal also seeks funding for the project director position along with a training and prevention budget, which costs up to $100,000 per year (0.5 FTE = $57,500 [$37,500 FTE + $20,000 OPE], $20,000 for travel, trainings, professional development related to GBV response and prevention, $22,500 for Prevention materials, marketing, speakers). This proposal would be best in full to confirm the full ability of the position to provide training and prevention that individual departments do not currently possess. If there is a concern about the proposal amount, FTE, or other aspects, there may be areas to adjust the proposal.
This proposal has the ability to affect change within student success, community engagement, academic excellence and accountability. WOU CASA currently provides framework to train students, staff, and faculty about how to provide student- or survivor-centered response and prevention to gender-based violence. Some trainings are best practice trainings for campus professionals to attend while other trainings are created by campus professionals to benefit others on campus. Regardless, these trainings are vital to ensuring student success in the face of gender-based violence. The WOU CASA program creates the environment for teamwork and lasting partnerships locally, regionally, and globally. Currently, the steering committee has representatives from across campus and within the community. Also, members of the steering committee participate in local and regional efforts and get technical assistance from global providers. Finally, with students are able to focus on their academic pursuits due to this program provides student-centered services that can be a barrier to continuing college for some students.
This budget proposal seeks to affect change for not only students, but staff and faculty as well. Coordinated, comprehensive gender-based violence prevention and response not only helps students get the services they deserve and aims to decrease the incidence of gender-based violence but also clarifies staff and faculty roles. With this program fully funded, students will benefit from providers who are trained in best practice trauma-informed response and comprehensive prevention. That means that staff like Abby’s House advocates, counselors, Campus Public Safety officers, and conduct boards get the training they need to provide student/survivor-centered response. It also confirms that anyone on campus (student employees, staff, and faculty) understand what their role is in responding to reports of gender-based violence. Along with training, this proposal will confirm coordination within the response and prevention so that response and prevention are efficient and effective. Coordinated messaging confirms that everyone knows what processes are used to respond and everyone receives multiple doses of prevention messaging to decrease the incidence of gender-based violence.
Assessment and evaluation is critical for public health and prevention. This will include formative, process, and outcome evaluation related to violence prevention best practices, program/event goals, and larger WOU goals/objectives. Some of the evaluation measures will include bystander intervention behaviors (intention and confidence to intervene), social norms, knowledge and utilization of resources, and others. While it will be hard to directly connect violence prevention to retention or recruitment, there are many known proxies (e.g. incidence of violence, mental health and wellness, trust in administration and policy, sense of connection/purpose, etc.). Evaluation and assessment measures will come from a variety of areas including the Abby’s House survey, Campus Climate Survey, American Collegiate Health Assessment, and Healthy Minds Study. Not only would culture shift around violence improve student retention, it can be a selling point to prospective students who want a sense of community - something WOU is already known for. Students consistently see prevention education as important to themselves but also to college students, generally. WOU situates itself between community colleges and large land-grant universities where one may not have funds to provide prevention and response services while the other focuses more on research rather than student-centered support. To continue to build the brand as such, along with appropriately assess this position’s success, there must be a full funding of this position.
Once approved, Abby’s House Director will create an official Position Description and follow search/hiring protocol in alignment with HR and the Division of Student Affairs. Hiring before the end of the WOU CASA grant (September 30, 2019) will allow the incoming hire to get acquainted with the program and understand the scope of the position. Knowledge of compensating the Abby’s House students would be beneficial before hiring so there is clarity in the roles. Traditionally volunteers for the Advocate team are recruited in May and trained the following September. Ideally, we would follow that schedule but with a formal hiring process in May. The other aspects of this proposal do not have specific timelines, though availability of training and prevention funds would benefit the program, especially during the summer term as to plan for the upcoming academic year.
Currently, violence prevention at WOU is heavily supported by grant funding (e.g. WOU CASA and Suicide Prevention grants). While WOU has been lucky to receive grant funding in these areas over the last decade, those funding sources will soon be unavailable due to limits in how many times an entity can receive funding. For WOU to move Forward Together and provide student-centered support to current and prospective students, it needs the proposed university-supported positions along with funds for ongoing training and prevention. If this proposal is not funded, we as a campus community, will lose the valuable cross-departmental coordination of violence prevention, along with the ability to keep prevention, victim services, conduct, and law enforcement up-to-date on best practices. Further, we will lose the ability to continue our current successes, in addition to losing the ability to grow and respond to the new and challenging issues that face current and prospective students. Not only do students expect these services, especially at a student-centered university like WOU, but the trends of violence (e.g. gender-based violence, suicide, and other topics) are only increasing. Those who represent the WOU CASA grant would hope that departments have seen the value in the trainings and professional development opportunities previously funded by the grant. While we hope that those departments will increase their leadership in providing these things for their departments after the grant is over, we cannot force others to allocate dollars. If this proposal is not funded Tim Glascock and Aislinn Addington – previously supported by the WOU CASA grant – will likely call upon the Core Team from the WOU CASA Grant, a group from across campus that has been meeting consistently for the past nine years, and ask that they establish a process to continue our work without a designated leader. Just as we cannot force departments to pay for things previously provided by the grant, we cannot make anyone lead or participate in this team after the grant concludes. Once the WOU CASA grant cycle is over - September 30, 2019 - Western Oregon University will lose capacity to organize faculty, staff, and students from across campus around prevention and response to sexual violence. In addition to losing the capacity built over the last nine years of the WOU CASA grant, if this position is not funded we lose the opportunity to expand the programming and address the vital student-centered services that current and prospective students need and expect. If this proposal is not funded Aislinn Addington, the Abby’s House Director, will include some items from this proposal in her presentation for the Student Affairs FY20 Budget meetings scheduled later this spring. Paying students for the work they do at Abby’s House is a priority that will be pursued via any number of funding routes.
Departments and organizations on campus incorporate prevention into what they do however WOU does not have a professional staff position that is violence prevention focused. While grants have supplemented this need, once that support leaves, prevention will become sporadic, uncoordinated, and ineffective. Research from CDC and others proves that a dedicated preventionist is vital to effective violence prevention. As mentioned in other areas, trends of violence are not going away but growing while students expect violence prevention on campuses. With the WOU CASA grant we enjoyed technical assistance from a number of nationally recognized organizations, such as Alteristic, Men Can Stop Rape, and Casa de Esperanza. Input from these organizations is another “loss” we face as this grant ends. There are local community partners we engage with, but they are not necessarily campus specific and not always prevention focused. For example, we participate in monthly Polk County Sexual Assault Response Team meetings and quarterly Sexual Assault Task Force meetings. Aislinn Addington belongs to a campus advocate specific group within the Task Force, but Western does not have representation at the prevention cohort within the Task Force due to lack of capacity.
We do not foresee adverse impacts to the funding of our proposal. If the proposal is NOT funded we anticipate major adverse impacts, which we have discussed in Question #7.
Best practice violence prevention programs involve a full-time coordinator position, training and professional development, and prevention programming, marketing, and events. If WOU is to continue the progress made with the WOU CASA program, these aspects must be fully funded. After input from the Vice President for Student Affairs, the proposal shifted. The overall budget amount will increase slightly (~$120,000). Shifts will include a slight change to the coordinator (from 0.5 to 1.0 FTE), paying the final 0.245 FTE of Abby’s House Director position, and the addition of funds to compensate student volunteer positions at Abby’s House. The first budget item is the Violence Prevention Coordinator (VPC) position. Due to the CDC recommendation, 1.0 FTE VPC position will be located in Abby’s House. Based on a CUPA from HR, this unclassified position will cost $69,284 (including OPE). One of the most important structures provided by current grant funding is the coordination of the committees. Increased communication, referrals, and routes to resources are better because each agency knows what the others provide, resulting in students receiving the student-centered services they need while also confirming there is increased trust that students will get their needs met in a timely manner. Student pay is a new addition to this proposal. There is power to hearing behavior change messages from peers; we aim to formalize the peer advocates at Abby’s House. Students at Abby’s House commit to serving 5 hours a week, and undergo significant training without compensation. It is one of the only student leadership groups not paid. Professionalizing the positions allows supervisors to be discerning in the hiring and clarify consequences for under-performing members of the Abby’s House team. Our proposal requests to pay 6 students at 5 hours per week for 30 weeks at $11.25/hour (totaling $10,469 with pay and OPE). One of the cornerstones of best practice violence prevention programs is ongoing training and professional development. Training allow campus members to keep their skills are up-to-date and if training together, it increases teamwork while decreasing implementation time. Here are the training and professional development opportunities requested: -NASPA Strategies conference - $6,000/year at $1500/person -Oregon Attorney General’s Sexual Assault Task Force Comprehensive Prevention training - $5,000/year at $600/person -End Violence Against Women International annual conference - $3,000/year at $1,500/person -Forensic Experiential Trauma Interview training - $3,000/year at $1,000/person -Travel for local and regional meetings - $1,000/year This proposal seeks $18,000/year to fund training and professional development. Over the last nine year of the grant, we have built a very strong basis of shared knowledge, skills, and services on our campus that we do not want to lose. While we want to be supportive of other departments getting trained, it is vital to fund all proposed trainings, until funding sources can be identified for those departments. This will confirm that students receive student-centered, trauma-informed, and best practice services so they can focus on their academic endeavors. The final budget item requested in this proposal is prevention, marketing, and events funds. To confirm comprehensive prevention efforts can reach the most students, faculty, and staff, the proposed funds are required. This proposal requests $5,000/year for prevention, marketing, and events. It will build on the current Abby’s House budget to match the expansion of the professional positions and capacity to implement prevention, marketing, and events. Full funding of prevention, marketing, and events is needed to effectively support student-centered violence prevention services.
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