Group to Analyze Sexual Climate in Two-Year Survey
A team of researchers from the Prevention Innovations Research Center (PIRC) at UNH will come to Exeter this year to begin a long term evaluation of the school’s sexual climate.
Over the course of the next two years, PIRC will study the culture of Exeter closely, examine the sexual climate on campus using evidence and data and determine necessary changes for Exeter to make.
In the past, PIRC has worked on many university campuses and military bases in their effort to end relationship violence, sexual violence and stalking, through the ministrations of their capable team of researchers and practitioners.
They have worked to improve institutional policies and practices regarding sexual and relationship violence through research and evaluation. They have developed prevention strategies and they have established effective support for survivors of sexual violence.
"We need to understand the vocabulary around relationships and sexual relationships, we need to understand where the risk is in those relationships and how we can make improvements to take care of ourselves and our friends.”
They will strive to do the same at the high school level and will partner with Exeter’s Sexual Assault Prevention program. PIRC declined to speak on this article about the specifics of how they will apply their program at the Academy; however, they said they would comment later into their research on progress, plans and updates.
Relationship and sexual safety has been a prevalent conversation on boarding school campuses nationwide, particularly in light of the Owen Labrie case at St. Paul’s this past school year. Dean of Students Melissa Mischke, Associate Dean of Students Gordon Coole and Chief Financial Officer David Hanson worked with Assistant Principal Kim and Principal Lisa MacFarlane to bring PIRC to campus in an effort to supplement their own efforts to improve Exeter’s sexual climate.
Coole said of their decision to bring PIRC to campus, “We did so with the awareness that we needed to employ the services of outside experts to complement the work we do internally.”
While at Exeter, a team of researchers and practitioners from PIRC will study the community closely and collaborate to document the trends they observe, specifically in regards to sexual culture.
They will evaluate their findings and develop tools for addressing the source of any problems they discover.
Their resulting evaluations and statistics will tailor programs specific to Exeter’s unique culture, and hope to identify Exeter’s social values, establish preventative strategies around relationship violence and develop a bystander training program for students.
Coole expressed faith in the PIRC’s previous impressive work and applauded their thorough and scientific methods. He noted that the program will continue to serve Exeter even after it is completed.
“The work they do in assessing, planning and implementing can be repeated over and over again so that we can not only build a solid program but can keep it current based on evidence based knowledge,”said Coole.
Mischke agreed. “We are walking out with programming that we can continue to evaluate and that is tailored for our community,” she said.
PIRC’s imminent presence on campus is a response from the administration not only to the extensive conversations at US boarding schools regarding sexual climate, but to dialogues and concerns expressed by students at Exeter specifically (see senior Heather Nelson and upper Claire Dauge-Roth’s letter to MacFarlane asking for changes in the sexual environment at Exeter, in this same issue).
Prep Isadora Kron described the sexual climate at Exeter as unhealthy. “The ‘hookup culture’ makes room for sexual assault to pass by under the radar,” she said. “I have seen people shaming other people for being sexual beings.”
On the other hand, prep Wynter Tracey finds Exeter’s sexual climate to be satisfactory. “Everyone’s super supportive and there’s a really great community at the school,” she said.
Lower Maria Heeter suggested that students would benefit from a clearer understanding of the protocol surrounding uncomfortable or dangerous sexual situations. “People who do have bad experiences have a really hard time speaking for themselves, and there are a lot of people who have been put in really tough situations who haven’t gotten justice.” she said. She conceded that, on the other hand, she thought her classmates would be served by seeking the administration’s help more frequently. “The administration does a lot more for us than what we perceive,” she said.
Mischke emphasised that in order to nurture a safe culture at Exeter and determine the necessary changes on campus, it is essential that the community work to understand the present sexual climate.
“It’s different than it was 25 years ago. We need to understand the vocabulary around relationships and sexual relationships, we need to understand where the risk is in those relationships and how we can make improvements to take care of ourselves and our friends,” she said.
She hoped that PIRC will help the community to accomplish these steps. “Let’s know the language, let’s understand the terms and let’s understand what our values are in the community,” she continued.
Coole explained that although he found the sexual climate at Exeter satisfactory, he still saw a real opportunity for improvement. “Exeter does not exist in isolation and our climate is reflective of our peer schools and our more broadly defined society,” he said.
“We can all do better in being respectful of others.” In PIRC, Coole saw a perfect vehicle for productive change. He concluded, “PIRC’s work will help us identify where we need to focus our efforts, how best to apply that work and will give us the tools to refresh our approach in a timely manner.”
Contributions From Elizabeth Yang