SEXUAL MISCONDUCT PREVENTION GUIDEBOOK PROVIDES HOLISTIC STRATEGIES IN HIGHER EDUCATION ENVIRONMENTS

n June 2022, Laura McGuire, EdD (Leadership for Change, ’15) released their book with Fielding University Press, The Sexual Misconduct Prevention Guidebook: Conduct and Consent for Higher Education Campuses. The publication was sponsored by the Jean-Pierre Isbouts Endowed Fund for Lifelong Learning. A nationally renowned author, speaker, and scholar, Dr. McGuire founded and runs The National Center for Equity and Agency.

This conversation delves into how they hope the book will contribute to further discussions and holistic strategies for addressing sexual misconduct and related issues in higher education and other environments.

What led you to do the work you do?

My professional journey really started with my experience being a very non-traditional student. I was a high school dropout and got married young, and I ended up being in an abusive marriage. In my mid-20s, I got my GED, and then did a very kind of out-of-the-box Adult Learners School for my undergrad as well (Thomas Edison State University). After that I became a teacher for at-promise youth who were dealing with issues like teen parenting and criminal charges. In all of those experiences and more, there were a lot of conversations about the students’ proximity to different kinds of violence and trauma, and then, I had my own as a survivor of domestic violence. When I got my degree, I was able to leave that marriage and really wanted to help prevent the next young person from getting into a similar scenario. I knew I wanted to make this the heart of what I studied in grad school. I wanted also to have a strong focus on human sexuality studies, and wanted it to be from an intersectional perspective.

What do you hope individuals and organizations achieve with this guidebook?

I hope that it lays cornerstones to build upon the creation of programs and cultures in our campus environments that are really going to assist students, as well as faculty and staff. Not just put Band-Aids on a festering wound,

Iwhich is often the case, right?

Rape culture and misconduct is such a deep, subversive, and pervasive problem. A lot of times, we don’t really get to the root of what's causing it, so that was really one of my focuses for the book. A longitudinal study from the EEOC (the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission) a few years ago looked at sexual harassment trainings in particular. They found that most trainings are ineffective because they focus on a list of things not to do.

One of the things I talk about in my book that's empowering for having these conversations at that level is the fact that sexual and domestic violence are not universal. There are cultures that anthropologists have been able to identify as rape-free. A lot of times, and even some other social scientists perpetuate this, is the belief that, “This is just human nature. This is just how we evolved, and so, we just have to warn people about it.” What we can learn from those rape-free cultures is that notion is not true, whether it's sexual harassment, domestic violence, assault, et cetera. We can change the way people think about these kinds of things, and how they identify them, and effectively address the continuum of harm. If we prevent these behaviors early on, we'll do a lot to stop things from escalating. We can empower people to speak up, to stand up for each other, to understand their resources, and how they'll be supported. Also, I think this is where restorative practices come in, even in the workplace.

How do you plan to continue your work in this space and beyond?

Right now, the focus is on some of the new certifications that we're rolling out at The National Center for Equity and Agency. We’ve been certifying individuals in specific industries on how to apply trauma-informed care to their fields — from insurance to law and higher education. It's not just an awareness of trauma but goes deeper into solutions and their applicability for everyday reality.