On September 19th, CSU celebrated RAINN day with an umbrella competition, in which groups of students, including student organizations, could create a design for an umbrella to focus on the RAINN day campaign to raise awareness of sexual violence in college communities.
Students were able to submit their designs before 11 a.m. on September 19th, when the event began. The event was held at Davidson Lounge until 1 p.m., and it included informational resources for students to look through and voting for the winning umbrella designs.
There were about 61 students in attendance, and 11 umbrellas were submitted for judging. There were first place, second place, and third place winners for the event. First place went to the National Society of Collegiate Scholars, second place went to the Honors College, and third place went to the American Chemical Society. Each of these winning groups won a small cash prize, and students were allowed to take home the umbrellas.
“The main goal is to make sure students know what resources are available if they’re ever in a situation where they need those resources,” said Theresa Willey, Resident Services and Student Support Coordinator at CSU. Willey is also the chair of the SAVE task force.
The event was created to raise awareness for RAINN, standing for Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network, which is an annual national campaign initiated to raise awareness and fight against sexual violence on college campuses. This organization is the nation’s largest anti-sexual violence organization, and it has a National Sexual Assault Hotline, which is 800.656.HOPE. The hotline is in partnership with more than a thousand local sexual assault service providers across the country.
According to RAINN’s website, rainn.org, “In 27 years, RAINN has helped 3.7 million survivors and their loved ones.”
The organization has more services but is dedicated to the cause of preventing sexual violence, helping survivors, and ensuring that perpetrators are brought to justice.
To find out more about RAINN, please visit their website.
CSU has additional organizations to connect students with resources other than the annual RAINN Day event. In the spring, they partner with a local support center for an event called “Speak Up, Speak Out.”
Another organization at CSU devoted to sharing resources and helping students with these subjects is the Sexual Assault Violence Education task force, or the SAVE task force. There are multiple departments across campus participating in the task force. SAVE hosts events and also collaborates with other organizations and their events.
One of SAVE’s events is called “Did You Know?” This is an event they frequently host, and the objective is to hand out different resources on a given topic, such as stalking, that provide information including how to recognize the behavior, how to report, and more.
Another event that SAVE participates in is “Fresh Check Day,” which is organized by the Dean of Students Office and the Counseling Center. SAVE frequently works with the other initiatives on campus.
Students can find out about these events through the Student Affairs calendar, the announcements displayed on televisions on campus, flyers, announcements in classes, and more.
SAVE also has a webpage which can be accessed through the Dean of Students page; the SAVE task force tab can be found on the left-hand side. They are still currently renovating the page, but they plan to add more resources, such as links.
Additionally, SAVE is looking for students to get involved with the organization.
“We want students that are able to be advocates for other students that may not be able to use their voice,” said Willey.
Willey encourages any student that is interested in helping the organization with events, such as prevention education, to get involved. SAVE also partners with student organizations for programming.
For students to get involved, the best way to contact SAVE currently is to email Ms. Willey at willey_theresa@columbusstate.edu. In the future, SAVE intends to add a contact section to their webpage, which would be another method of reaching out.
Another of Willey’s objectives for students is to understand SAVE’s reporting mechanism, which can be located by scrolling down CSU’s main page to find the link for “Create Care Referral/Report.”
This page allows students to choose the type of report they would like to submit, and Willey believes it is important for students to know about this form and how to use it. It is another resource to help students be successful, like counseling and other mental health services.
“Anything that we can do to support and uplift,” said Willey. “That’s what we want to do.”
