Community Time Focuses on Consent
Exeter spent its second biweekly Community Time discussing the school’s new affirmative consent policy. Despite the day’s intentions, some felt that the discussions were not entirely effective.
During Community Time, student facilitators read off a script to lead groups through the new policy and talk about campus culture and strategies to use when encountering misconduct
“My hope and expectation is that students will have had a space where they can clarify any questions they have about the affirmative consent policy and raise any concerns or explore the gray areas or what can make it more difficult in situations like that,” [Dean Cahalane] said.
Towards the end of the 2017-18 school year, Director of Student Well-Being Christina Palmer and PEA’s General Counsel Holly Barcroft drafted an addendum to the E Book that necessitated affirmative consent in sexual activities. It defined affirmative consent as the “knowing, voluntary, and mutual decision among all participants to participate in sexual activity,” and stipulated that consent applies to persons of all “sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression.”
In preparation for the discussions, student leaders including proctors and student listeners attended a workshop held by two representatives from HAVEN, a New Hampshire organization fighting domestic and sexual violence. There, students learned how to address hypothetical situations and learned about the sexual misconduct spectrum. Senior and discussion leader Emily Oliphant believed that the training was helpful overall but not specific enough to Exeter’s new policy. “I wish that it had been more Exeter-centric, rather than a general one through HAVEN,” she said.
Despite the lack of specificity, however, many students favored the new approach, as it was more proactive. “The school is finally realizing that they can’t really stop students from engaging in sexual activities and as a result they are trying to make sure that as long as it’s happening, [it’s] safe and consensual for all the students involved,” upper and discussion leader David Gonzalez said.
Palmer, who led and designed the program, could not be reached for comment at the time of publication.
Interim Dean of Residential Life Carol Cahalane, who helped organize the discussions, explained the goal for this week’s Community Time. “My hope and expectation is that students will have had a space where they can clarify any questions they have about the affirmative consent policy and raise any concerns or explore the gray areas or what can make it more difficult in situations like that,” she said.
Despite the activity’s intentions, some students expressed their dissatisfaction towards the lack of preparation and training. Senior and student facilitator Sam Gove felt that facilitators were not given enough preparation or notice before having to lead discussions, as they received a presentation and script only a day before Community Time. “In the spring, I went to this HAVEN workshop, but it had almost nothing to do with what we did today because today was about the school policy and not about the bystander effect. I felt really unprepared, and I didn’t know anything that was happening,” she said. “It’s such an important topic, and to just brush it aside and throw it away, to give us a script that’s not even written that well is ridiculous, especially with the amount of the emphasis they’ve been putting on this topic.”
Students also complained about the lack of discussions in certain groups, especially with the lowerclassmen. Prep Lily Buckner said, “Everyone was mostly dead silent except for those who were leading the discussion. Not really anyone was enthusiastic about talking about it.”
Similarly, lower Sarah Huang commented on the challenge of having a productive discussion with people she was unfamiliar with. “Regardless of how they formatted [the questions], it would probably not be a comfortable discussion for anyone to have. But maybe if they provided a couple more questions for discussion, we would have been able to talk more easily,” she said.
On the other hand, Associate Dean of Multicultural Affairs Hadley Camilus offered a more optimistic view on the effectiveness of the discussion questions. “I think the intensity of the questions will force students to continue to think about these questions,” he said. “I don’t think many students came out today with better skills to deal with situations. However, I think there will be more thought involved on the part for all students on how they engage.”