Title: Visions of Social Change
Presenter: Ananya Chatterjea, Ananya Dance Theatre; Yolanda Francisco-Nez, (Diné) Executive Director, Restoring Ancestral Winds; Liliana Olvera-Arbon, Executive Director, UCASA; Keith Squires, Interim Chief Safety Officer, University of Utah
Moderator: Dr. Annie Isabel Fukushima, Assistant Professor, Ethnic Studies, University of Utah
Date: 4/16/21
Copyright: copyright Ananya Chatterjea, Yolanda Francisco-Nez, Liliana Olvera-Arbon, Keith Squires, & Annie Isabel Fukushima ©2021
Table of Contents
Transcript- Yolanda Francisco-Nez 26:55 – 44:40
Annie Fukushima: Our next speaker is Yolanda Francisco-Nez, who is a Navajo or Diné, from the Navajo/Diné tribe. She is the executive director of Restoring Ancestral Winds, served four years as a Board Chair of the Utah Coalition Against Sexual Assault, helped to establish Navajo Nation Council Sexual Assault Prevention Working Group to address child abduction, sexual violence, and trafficking, received special recognition for her achievements from the Navajo Nation Council, co-authored reports on discrimination, women’s rights, and excessive use of force and has played a significant role in being—in being the first city to pass legislation to protect LGBTQI2S from employment discrimination. And so, she’s been involved in those efforts as well. So, now I would like to invite Yolanda Francisco-Nez to turn off her—turn on her mic and to turn on her camera, and I’m going to go ahead and do [the] screen share of her slides for her.
Yolanda Francisco-Nez: Good morning, everyone. Yá’át’ééh, Yolanda Francisco-Nez [introduction in Navajo]. I am the Executive director of Restoring Ancestral Winds, and I am very happy and pleased to be here this morning. I sent a quick message to my mom and thanked her for the past she laid for me as a matrilineal society, giving her respect and gratitude for laying the path at her alma mater, the University of Utah School of Social Work.
So, today we’re going to talk a bit about the missing and murdered Indigenous people in Utah, colonization trauma, and violence. Go ahead and go to the next slide. First, I’m going to share with you a bit about the—I’m going to talk about who we are in our little organization located here in Sandy, Utah. Restoring Ancestral Winds’ mission is to support healing in our Indigenous communities. We will advocate for healthy relationships, educate our communities on issues surrounding stalking, trafficking, domestic, sexual, dating, and family violence. We’ll collaborate with Great Basin community members and stakeholders, honor and strengthen traditional values of all our relations. Next slide.
I’m going to talk a little bit more in depth about inter—well IPV it’s referred to as IPV— interpersonal/intimate partner violence and how that is defined is “abuse or aggression that occurs in a romantic relationship.” “Intimate partner” often refers to both current and former spouses and dating partners. IPV can carry in how—can vary in how often it happens and how severe it is. It can range from one episode of violence that could have lasting impact to chronic and severe episodes over multiple years. IPV includes four different types of behavior and I’m not going to go into all of this, but the four are physical violence, sexual violence, stalking, and psychological aggression. It’s often also referred to as—sometimes as domestic violence and dating violence as well. But it’s these other forms of—it’s connected to those forms of violence but also, it’s related to serious health issues and economic consequences. Next slide.
So, we’re going to talk about how intimate partner violence affects those who are living in Indian Country and that particular wording, Indian Country, is an official word of the U.S. government referring to Native Americans and Indigenous people as Indians. Next. I do want to offer a disclaimer that all data presented here is—is the best, imperfect data available to understand how violence operates in Indigenous communities. Unless it otherwise states, next—did we skip one? There we go—so there are two studies that I’m going to talk about quickly. One is the National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey, which was published in—well, the work was—[the] state report was done between 2010 and 2012. It notes that, with few exceptions, racial and ethnic minority women bear the greatest burden of—of victimization of sexual violence, stalking, and intimate partner violence, making targeted public health prevention programming critical. Specific patterns indicate that, excuse me American Indian and Alaskan Native women and men tend to have elevated prevalence estimates that—estimates compared to other racial and ethnic groups. So, racial and ethnic minority communities may be exposed to a number of stressors such as low income, less access to education, employment, and community resources that likely contribute to the risk—their risk of—risk for experiencing violence. Next.
So, to give you an overview of these experiences, I’ll share with you the—this overview that includes experience—people who experience—native people who experience violence in their lifetime. You’ll see here that about 84.3% of females experience violence and 81.6% experience violence of hose who are male. Of sexual violence, we have 56.1% of female[s] and 27.5% of male[s] and I’ll let you read through those other statistics as we continue to move forward. In this presentation, you’ll see that—oh let’s go back, oh thank you—relative to white women, Native women are 1 and 1.2 times as likely to experience violence in their lifetime and, relative to white men, Native men are 1.3 times as likely to experience violence in their lifetime. Native men are more likely to have experienced violence by interracial perpetrators and significantly less likely to have experienced violence by intra-racial perpetrators. We’ll go to the next slide.
So, of physical violence, 55% percent of American Indian and Alaska Native women and 40% to 43.2% of American Indian and Alaska Native men have experienced physical violence by an intimate partner. Next, you’ll see here in the graph shown that over a lifetime of physical violence, these are the types of violence that Native American men and women have experienced. And then the sight, the view that you have of the right side of that screen, is physical violence by intimate partner perpetrators where you have that interracial and interracial [statistic]. With Native American female and male and white female and male, you’ll see that incredible difference that exists with 90% female and 85% percent male of interracial violence and then you have lower numbers of white female and male respectively. So, let’s go to the next slide.
So, our organization has a very, I think, a unique take in working with our Indigenous Two-Spirit LGBTQI community and we feel like it’s very important as a tribal coalition to give to uplift the voice of those who are also deeply affected by violence. So, of the Indigiqueer, Two-Spirit, and LGBTQI [community], there was another report that is the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs. A 2016 study noted that 15 IPV homicides and 2,032 reports of IPV occurred; 19% experienced physical violence. In a transgender survey in 2015, K-12, 49% were physically attacked. And then also The Diné Policy Institute in 2015 published a report as well, noting that 18% of Navajo people experienced physical violence in the last six months. Next.
So, now let’s talk about—we explored physical violence, now I’d like to explore sexual violence. Next. So, what we know is that over a lifetime, sexual violence that occurs with penetration among our Native American females is at 35% with about 10.8% male, and we know that among white people, female is 20.1% with males at 5.1%. So, you’ll see underneath, that also, other forms of violence that I won’t go into because I’d like to spend more time toward the end of this. You can take a look there and see that at the very bottom that any sexual violence among females is 56.1% versus females at—49% of white women are at 49.7%. Close, very close in in percentages there. So, let’s go to the next slide.
Among our in Indigiqueer, Two-Spirit, and LGBTQI population we have (the report noted earlier), in the 2016 study, that 7% experienced sexual violence in 2016. That, in the transgender survey in 2015, it notes that 24% of our community K-12 were sexually assaulted and 65% were sexually assaulted (of adults). The Diné Policy Institute, among the Navajo, study, 20% percent of—20% experienced sexual assault in the last six months. Next.
Stalking is a form of violence, as you may know, and we have about 48.8% of Native women and 18.6% of Native men who experience stalking in their lifetime. Next—so I’m just going to show you quickly this graph here—the Native American victims who experience stalking over a lifetime, that is an incredibly high number of who receive unwanted phone calls. Female at 82.1% and 75.3% for men and then you have stalking by an intimate partner and perpetrators who are interracial and intraracial among Native American females and males and also white people who are female and male. You’ll see those differences. There you can see that 90% among interracial is much higher among our white people than Native American males at 23%. Next.
So, among our again, our in Indigiqueer, Two-Spirit, and LGBTQI community. We have in this study that [those who are] trans are 2.5 times more likely to be stalked compared to our to Native survivors who were not trans and trans [people] are 2 times more likely to experience online harassment with about 2% experiencing online harassment. The Diné Policy Institute in 2015 noted that 24% of Navajo [were] followed or—were followed or chased in the last six months. Next.
So, another form of violence is also that of psychological aggression. So, among American Indian and Alaska Natives, 66% (of course I meant women, Native women) 66.4% have experienced psychological aggression by an intimate partner in their lifetime and 25.5% percent have experienced it in the past year. And among the American Indian and Alaska Native men, 73% have experienced psychological aggression by an intimate partner in their lifetime and 23.3% have experienced it in the past year. Next. We’ll just I’ll let you observe this particular slide on the psychological aggression by an intimate partner. You’ll see, among the graph here, is the expressive aggression among female, male Native Americans versus the 44% (oh well 44.2%) of female and 35.3% percent males experiencing expressive aggression. I’m not going to go through all—all of this but you can look take a look at those numbers and—and you’ll see some very significant differences. In particular, among the interracial female and also the white female: that is a large difference, 91% versus 22%, respectively. Next.
Next, we’ll go—we’ll go near, okay good here—so, now with all these numbers, what do we do with this? I want to just go into conclusion, here, with one minute left. What—what—what is it that leads to all of this? We have a much longer presentation that we offer, several reasons why, but I’m gonna go—if you would just go to the next slide—these are some of the reasons. Next. So, what we have is that, I want to just end with this. That is—that in the recent legislative Utah Legislative session, Representative Angela Romero passed a bill that she sponsored on continuing the work of the missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls here in Utah that is set to begin over in June and will be a task force that is formed and will meet about 7 times and submit a report of recommendations to the legislature. And so, I’m sorry we couldn’t go through each of the rest of those slides, but I am happy to talk about this further and again thank you Dr. Fukushima for allowing us to participate and inviting Restoring Ancestral Winds to be part of this discussion.
Transcript- Liliana Olvera-Arbon 45:08 – 1:01:00
Annie Fukushima: Now, I would like to introduce our next speaker. Our next speaker is Liliana Olvera-Arbon, who is the Executive Director for the Coalition Against Sexual Assault. She joined UCASA over a year ago with over 10 years of experience working in social services, demonstrating profound leadership while working at Los-Angeles-based rape crisis center and, later, a program coordinator at the California Coalition Against Sexual Assault. Liliana’s vision is to center and uplift the voices of communities marginalized by society and bring a deep commitment towards social equity and collective liberation. She is dedicated to educating people of their rights and opportunities and envisions a world free of gender-based violence. Now, I would like to invite Liliana to unmute her microphone and her camera.
Liliana Olvera-Arbon: You—Annie, can you hear me?
Annie Fukushima: I can hear you wonderfully. It’s so wonderful to see your face.
Liliana Olvera-Arbon: Thank you so much for having me. I’m so—I’m looking forward to sharing space and information with all of you today. I’m gonna go ahead and share my screen, so that I can present my slides. Okay. Thank you again for having me. My name, like Annie mentioned—or Dr. Fukushima—is uh Liliana and I am the Executive Director for the Utah Coalition Against Sexual Assault and I am extremely honored to, again, share space and time with you all in today’s discussion around ending gender-based violence.
And so, with that I recognize always the incredible work that the mothers of this movement and those who participate in this movement have placed and have done to provide a space for me to also be in this space with you all and in this position of leadership at the Utah Coalition Against Sexual Assault. And I want to recognize my grandmother and mother who taught who my—who—my grandmother taught me to be strong, taught me to stand up and against the injustices that we saw, and that my mother taught me to be empathetic, to be caring, and to see people for who they were. And so, without their teachings, without their essences, I would not be who I am today. So, I honor them, and I thank them for guiding me to the point where I am today.
I want to talk a little bit about who the Utah Coalition Against Sexual Assault is and what we do and kind of provide a quick overview of our programs. We definitely provide training and technical assistance around the state of Utah, with webinars publications. We also provide a 40-hour training for all victim advocates who are starting their work around victim services. We do and started with a rape recovery center. A year and a half ago, the very first Spanish 40-hour training here in our state—so very—not too long ago we provided that training together. UCASA continues to lead by providing that Spanish training for our communities and, of course, we do one-on-one training for those interested in knowing more and interested in creating space for understanding trauma response and understanding what best practices or promising practices are available to better serve survivors of sexual violence. We also do a lot of prevention work, engaging men in the anti-violence movement and working with young women of color as well. And of course, our Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner Program, where our nurses train nurses across the state of Utah to provide trauma-informed collection evidence of when survivors are reporting at the hospital. I’m so—creating a cohesive way to respond to this—a way where folks are able to connect with our three same nurses on ways to better support survivors during the forensic collection part and medical support. We also have rural programming where we serve sexual assault victims, survivors, secondary survivors, family members, anyone impacted by violence in rural communities such as Tooele, Duchesne, Daggett, and Uintah county.
So, Yolanda shared some of those statistics as well and now like to share a little bit more of what we know about sexual assault in Utah. We know one in three women will be sexually assaulted in their lifetime. We know one in six men will experience some form of sexual violence. One in two trans individuals will be sexually assaulted. Rape is the only violent crime in Utah that occurs at a higher rate than the rest of the nation and remembering that these numbers are only based on those that have reported and we understand that rape is one of the most under-reported crimes. Now, I’d like to kind of move into understanding the pandemic, right, the immense necessity for us to think about sexual violence within marginalized communities. We had Yolanda share about the Native community—56.1% of Native Americans have been victims of sexual violence. More than 20% of Black women have been victims of rape according to the Institute of Women’s Policy. People who identify as Latinx, Hispanic, Asian Pacific Islander, or mixed race are also overrepresented as victims of sexual assault.
So, that really brings us to understanding that—sorry, I’m going to go back—to be marginalized means to be pushed aside. It is there at the edges that perpetrators of sexual violence often seek their victims, counting on societal blind spots to protect and perpetrate their transgressions. People of color disproportionately represent victims of sexual violence. Inequities tend to intersect, creating webs of disenfranchisement that can be hard to escape and so we recognize that here at UCASA, and we work towards educating communities to understand that survivors of communities of color, of marginalized community have added barriers to reporting to seeking access to healing: ultimately to healing from the violence that they have encountered. So, what we do at UCASA—our approach—is really looking at kind of a—our framework is a three-prong approach. We do individual program support at community and institutional levels and collective power statistics reveal that far too many people from marginalized communities become targets of sexual violence. What these figures do not accurately reflect, however, are the actual number of victims. Like we shared in those statistics earlier, sexual violence against disenfranchised communities is thought to be greatly under-reported for all of the barriers that I shared before.
Now, these this framework that UCASA really centers is a way to look at ending sexual violence and envisioning a world free from sexual violence and we start with the individual program-level support we are extremely focused on finding ways to better support marginalized communities. Audre Lorde says it best by saying, “there is no such thing as a single issue struggle because we do not live single issue lives.” That is so true for our communities. That is so true for each one of us, that we need to look at survivors as a whole. What represents that survivor, what puts that—what composes that survivor. So, our program and individual support focus on centering survivors, supporting programs that serve victims across the state of Utah, ensuring that they are intentional in their work, and reaching out to the most vulnerable (doing first responders trainings, which means that we all have the responsibility to know how to believe, how to work, how to support a survivor when they’re telling us that they’ve been victimized. We do—like I shared earlier—saying education that programs within our state understand how to support survivors and how to understand the different complexities and intersections that represent that survivor and that we continually talk about and educate around the access of medical care when someone has been victimized due to sexual violence.
Our second approach is really focused on community and institutional change, promoting policies that support safe environment. Recently, we worked with Representative Romero and the Rape Recovery Center on the Prison Rape Elimination Act. The Prison Rape Elimination Act was enacted in 2011 or 2012 as a way to enact standards where those that were in detention had access to support, but also looking at ways to detect prevent sexual violence from happening within these systems in the United States, in our very own state of Utah. There is an over-representation of communities of color. We know, like we shared earlier with statistics, that our communities of color, our marginalized groups have higher rates of sexual violence and oftentimes do not report and seek services. And so, what this means with this legislation, for us in Utah, was that Utah was one of two states in the nation that was not in compliance with serving incarcerated survivors of violence and so this legislation is enacting this so that we can look at ways to better serve those who are disenfranchised and are in our facilities. Again, creating more access to communities, to victim services, for those that are underrepresented.
Within the work that we are doing, we also look at institutional change by building leaders, youth leaders, within our community. UCASA has introduced Mujeres Utah Contra La Violencia, an acronym for Unidas Adelante Holisticamente, that we know that community is empowered and should be empowered to find ways to heal and that, by building these leaders, they can and will have the resources to heal from sexual violence. And we also engage with men that we know, that men also play a part in ending violence, and we call them to action by joining in conversations on how they can upstand, be part of this movement to end violence, and how they can be a voice of change within our communities as well.
And lastly collective power. We at UCASA are creating a movement that requires all of us to join and to be an active participant in ending gender-based violence. To really engage in this work, there needs to be both individual and collective change and an understanding of the dominant forces of our culture. Members of the dominant culture or institution should be engaging in this work for other people as well as for themselves. Conversations around oppression and inclusivity are about everyone’s freedom. We need to increase our consciousness to reveal our own unconscious biases and unrecognized privileges of identities from the dominant culture. We seek to transform the underlying conditions that result in domination, extraction, and violence and towards the vision of a world rooted in interdependence, resilience, and sustainability. We cannot, and I cannot say this enough, do this work alone. It requires the collective. It requires envisioning a world free from sexual violence. It requires us to think what is our purpose or distinct role in services of the vision as a collaborative, what values do we need to move away from a society, and what values do we need to move towards. We are celebrating and talking and doing a lot of work around Sexual Assault Awareness Month. Today, in April, we must look beyond Sexual Assault Awareness Month and make this an everyday effort in order to end sexual violence.
We all are deeply interconnected as human beings and any societal change benefits all of us. We are honored to be part of a movement that looks at elevating those that have and historically have been underserved and we are inviting all of you to look at ways that you can contribute to this collective power by looking at ways that you start looking at ending violence, remembering that we are in this together. We may have moments where we may fall short but if we connect understand and uplift and believe survivors and create that systemic change or that paradigm shift that we are always talking about, we can achieve this as a collective power.
Thank you, Annie.
Transcript- Keith Squires 1:01:00 – 1:17:35
Annie Fukushima: So, now I’d like to invite Keith Squires, who is the interim Chief Safety Officer at the University of Utah. He has served in Governor Gary Herbert’s cabinet as a Utah Commissioner of Public Safety, retiring in September 2018 after 31 years of service. He holds a Master’s degree in Homeland Defense and Security from the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School and a Bachelor’s degree in Administration of Criminal Justice and he’s also a graduate of the FBI National Academy. So, I’d like to now invite Keith to unmute yourself and to turn on—turn on your camera. Sorry, that’s what I meant to say.
Keith Squires: Thank you, Annie. And it—this has been wonderful. I’m very fortunate to have been invited to join you this morning, especially with such other distinguished speakers and the information that’s being shared.
I’d like to start out by introducing myself. My name is Keith Squires. I began my career in law enforcement and public safety way back in the late 1980s, but over the years, I’ve had just tremendous experiences. Many, many rough days, a lot of tragic situations that I’ve been involved with, but I’ve been very fortunate that over those years, I’ve had a chance to also see change. I’ve had a chance to see where police work and public safety services needed to be advanced, needed to be better realized, and the opportunities of doing things different. And despite the challenges that we have right now, that are going on around the country, and also here in Utah, as it’s in regard to the police and how policing is done, I think that the value from this is that it’s serving as a catalyst. One that’s allowing us to make changes that normally don’t happen in the timely fashion that they should, and so in that way, it’s a good thing.
As I served in my previous career of public safety, I was with the Utah department of public safety. I was able to serve in various roles and all of the different positions and ranks of that department and finished the last five years of my career serving as Governor Herbert’s Commissioner of Public Safety overseeing the department and that includes the state police, the highway patrol, State Bureau of Investigation, as well as the other public safety services, emergency management, even driver’s license division, and others. One of the things that I was able to be involved in, that I think genuinely ties into what we’re discussing today, is an opportunity that I had about almost five years ago.
For the first time in our state agency, I was able to take a couple positions that the legislature was giving us that could have been used for trooper positions, police officers, and we were able to use those to employ a social worker and two victims advocates. And so, the thing that I recognized not the onset (but also we managed through it), was the resistance the change might bring as far as the culture and the just the way that police usually do business or have been trained. But what I found from being able to combine those teams is that it didn’t take too long once they were interacting and understanding what each other brings to the situation, a level of response that we had never seen before. One that gives us other options in the traditional ways that we’ve policed or responded to calls or dealt with individuals who are in crisis. And I know that that’s the future, but it has been a slow move and in in our state, with the number of apartments there are, there still are not near as many. Very few in fact. They’re doing this at the University of Utah.
Well, I retired from the state, as I said, about two and a half years ago and it was very shortly after I retired that I received a phone call from President Watkins at the University, and she asked if I would be available and able to assist as part of an independent investigation team looking into the tragic murder of Lauren McCluskey on campus. The university’s police department and other departments and their response to Lauren’s requests and needs and I was fortunate that my employer at that time was able to give me leave, and I was able to spend about a month and a half on that investigation. And specifically, my role was focusing in on the police response and those interviews of all involved there, but you know I was also given, right from the beginning, it was like I was made known that there was no expectation to follow the information and I served without compensation. So, it was truly an independent opportunity for us to look at everything and present our findings along with some recommendations and so those recommendations were about 30.
But it was very meaningful. Of all the things that I’ve been involved in in my career, Lauren’s circumstances, she was not unlike any of our family members, people that we know that begin their university and college experiences but was found herself in a situation that was very scary and she was seeking help. And the toughest part about it is when you investigate something like that, is that you look at every aspect and you realize that where there were opportunities and there were practices that should have been followed and incorporated into the way that we do our work. And that, had they been incorporated the way they should have, would have made a difference in the outcome and so that has, like a few other incidents in my career, really inspired me to look for ways that I can contribute still and help make those changes in a healthy way and help others to be able to look outside of what we normally do and how we provide police services to our communities. All of our communities.
Of those recommendations that we made, I am excited to report that some great changes have been in place, this past year especially. About a year ago my predecessor, Marlon Lynch, was the first Chief Safety Officer for the University of Utah, was able to come in and change the structure of the police department. Instead of everything rolling up into the police chief, which can tend to cause everything as part of that to be police-centric, he leveled that structure out. He created other positions and elevated them to directors, such as our Security Services Director both on main campus and with U Health, but also our Community Support Services Director, and that is a team of three right now that have social work and victims’ advocate experience and expertise. And we are in the process now, at the University of Utah, developing a joint response protocol and having those teams be able to work together, as I described from my experience also with the Utah Department of Public Safety, and so I’m very excited to be involved with that. And we are starting to make good progress and I expect that we will be in a situation very soon where that is working and taking advantage not only of our team, but other resources that are available to us through the university.
The other thing I want to mention is that in August of last year, President Watkins created two committees to be part of university safety and work with us. One is the Independent Review Committee, and the other is the Public Safety Advisory Committee. Both of these committees are comprised of members of our community, represented by students faculty and staff. I’ll first just mention the IARC, the Independent Review Committee, because this is something also that is very unique, not only in Utah, but I believe across the country. At this point, they have been, since August of last year, this committee reviewing every complaint that comes in on any of our personnel and so that, as you can imagine, can be anything from rudeness up to dereliction of duty, excessive force, anything that anyone brings forward. Some of those complaints have even come in from within the department by others, which is also a healthy sign. When you have a culture where individuals are sharing information, but the independent review committee is working. They’re very thoughtful and the way that they look at each complaint and then they’re able to advise back, not only to me, but to the University President any recommendations they’re helping us with, policy considerations, training issues, and that’s going to be a positive for the future.
The Public Safety Advisory Committee, also composed comprised of faculty, staff, and students, is an advisory to the Chief Safety Officer. Our meeting next week, as just for an example, is looking at the required notifications that go out on campus when certain incidents happen, related to the Cleary Act, and what we are looking for is their insight as recipients of those notifications on how we may improve that to be able, not only how we put the notifications out but how we follow up and communicate information to them that helps them understand that the situation’s now resolved or that it’s safe to proceed.
So those are some key things. Another thing I’d like to mention is a great innovation. About six months ago, gentleman Brian Nichols, who comes to us with 10 years experience at the University having been in the Office of Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action, is now serving as a Senior Advisor to the Chief Safety Officer. And Brian has a dotted line in his responsibilities, but he also works weekly with the Office of Student Affairs as well as the Office of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion and so what that gives us is a chance to make sure that everything that we are working on is considerate of ways for us to address issues and incidents of racist, biased incidents, as well as making sure that our services are coordinated. And so, another great innovation that I’m very excited about.
Lastly, I just wanted to mention there’s a lot of things going on. Another personal experience that I had, again about five years ago in my previous position at the Utah Department of Public Safety, we also had responsibility for policing on the Salt Lake Community College Campus. And so, at that time, I had a couple sexual assaults that had taken place on campus that we were working, that we were, you know, doing all we could to identify the suspects and resolve that to get help for the victims. But what I recognized (and there was also some other incidents on the news from other parts of the state and on other campuses) but was that there was a need for us to have more of a proactive effort to help all students, but especially young women coming onto campus, to understand some of the hazards that may be there to understand situational awareness better and to have some understanding to help with their safety and going into that new environment. And my family was also, you know, at ages where I was able to talk to them and their friends and found that really, what we had was a chance here (the same as in law enforcement) if you have thought about something beforehand and had some training on it, you’re more inclined to be able to react to it, so I’ll finish up here by just letting you know that we were able to bring a program here and started at the Salt Lake Community College that is really making a difference.
And thank you, thank you so much, and so interesting to think about institutional change in the face of so many of our communities needs.