HAVEN-NH Consent Workshop
By: Reilly Piersimoni, Alia Bonanno, Athena Wang, Emi Levine
Content Warning: mentions of sexual assault
A week after student protests demanding support for Student Leaders in regard to sexual assault cases, the Academy held its regular workshops on consent training on Tuesday, September 24.
Run by HAVEN, “the largest violence prevention and support services agency in NH” according to their website, the workshops have been limited to student leaders in past years but were expanded to all students this year. The fall workshop series is for preps, lowers, and new students, while uppers and seniors will participate in the spring term.
Director of Student Wellbeing Christina Palmer sent an all-student email announcing the workshops. “Prevention education is one of the best ways to help protect from the dangers of interpersonal violence and unhealthy attitudes and relationships,” Palmer wrote. “The presentation will include challenges to victim blaming and myths about consent through engaging storytelling and scenarios, the importance of consent and what consent looks like, and encouragement to become upstanders and to take active roles in shaping safer and healthier communities.”
One of the presenters from HAVEN, Sijan Murphy, explained the importance of the workshops. “We [HAVEN] think it's really important for people of all ages, but especially students at this age, to be aware of what goes into consent and why it's important for themselves, their friends, and their partners,” Murphy said.
“Prevention of sexual and domestic violence is what we at HAVEN do. The earlier we can start giving people this information and giving them this training, the better that they will be as adults at living their lives in a way that stops violence from happening,” Murphy continued.
Lower Freya Busser recalled the presentation “[The workshop] included the definition of consent and how the lines between real consent and not are not blurred. An example was when they used two bees (not people, no) on a couch with one asking, ‘can we have sex?’ the response has to be ‘enthusiastic and excited’. ‘Maybe’ or ‘sure’ is not consent. It also went over the legal side of sexual activity in New Hampshire and the country or the legal consequences of underaged activity,” Busser said.
Prep Roxane Park said, “The presentation was humorous at times, serious at others, and there was a lot of visual learning [like] a slideshow, videos, [and] evaluation and criticism of ads about the videos.”
When asked about students’ learning from the workshop, Murphy said, “We do pre- and post-surveys and there are definitely differences, especially on the more tricky things, where these workshops clarify some of the more difficult concepts.”
Some students agreed the workshops were informative. Busser appreciated hearing about New Hampshire-specific consent laws. “I felt it gave me some perspective as a woman underaged and as someone who doesn't come from New Hampshire. To compare the legal rules to my home state rules was interesting. It opened my eyes a little to how many responses are considered real consent and not,” Busser said.
Lower Esme Eberstadt said, “I feel like [the workshop] was helpful, for sure, but it wasn't new information. It was definitely beneficial to have the review and it's nice to know that everyone in this school had that review too.”
In light of Nancy Jo Sales’ ’81 Vanity Fair article detailing the Academy’s sexual assault cases, some students felt the workshops were somewhat performative, “I think it was a reaction to a traumatic event. I think this is something that many schools do, they wait for a world-rocking event to happen, and they act based on the response to it instead of being a few steps ahead,” Busser said, “...they should include this in every year for all new students especially. I am new myself, so I am probably not educated on who Exeter really is yet, if it does have this kind of workshop already in their curriculum, then great.”
Park said, “Obviously, the content was highly related to the Vanity Fair article and protest. However, in my opinion, the workshop was more centered around the fairly evident ‘why sexual misconduct/assault is wrong’ and less of the far more relevant ‘what you can actually do if you are ever in a situation like that yourself.’
Park called for greater emphasis on prevention. “More focus on what we can do to combat cases of misconduct would be a very helpful addition,” Park said.
Busser said, “I think the workshop could be in smaller groups to be more effective. It can be hard to run something like this for high school students as many of us are too immature to not laugh or to take it seriously, so I think that was the main obstacle for its intended impact but overall, it covered great topics and used effective methods.”
HAVEN looks forward to working with the academy more extensively. “We love coming to Exeter. We see so many students here every year and it's nice to be able to be here and offer our services,” Murphy said.
