What options do students have to address sexual assault?

Do you know how to report a sexual assault? If you don’t, you’re not alone. UTD has an array of resources for preventing and addressing sexual violence in students, staff and faculty, but they often slip under the radar.

As campus reopens, UTD has many avenues available for addressing and preventing sexual assault. Someone who has been assaulted can disclose to UTD Police, which will follow up with a criminal investigation.

A victim can also disclose to the Title IX office, which handles a broader range of sexual misconduct. Immediately after an assault, the victim can go to the Student Health Center for a checkup. All options allow the choice of whether or not to disclose to law enforcement.

UTD has several programs focused on the prevention of sexual assault. Somer Fernandez teaches the Rape Aggression Defense course on campus, which has separate sections for men and women. Over the course of multiple days, participants in the women’s class learn situational awareness and how to fight back in a variety of scenarios, culminating in a test against a simulated aggressor.

“We don’t have it scheduled ‘cause of COVID,” Fernandez said, “but it is for students, it’s for faculty, it’s for staff, it’s even for civilians outside. So they don’t have to go to school here…It’s on the website; anyone can register to do it.”

Also key to preventing sexual assault is education about consent, which UTD provides through EVERFI, the online modules taken during freshman year. Despite stylistic changes to the course in 2020, its content has remained the same. Kacey Sebeneicher—the

Curious Comets

Presence discontinued for student orgs.

Effective March 31, the SOC contract with Presence will expire and student organizations will no longer be able to access any files stored in the platform.

Phase 3 water shutoff and maintenance

Residential Student Affairs senator Anni Chen spoke with RHA at the end of February to get clarity on Phase 3’s ongoing water outages and mildew maintenance practices. Housing said the water shutoffs are due to a valve replacement project happening in

Phases 1, 2 and 3 that’ll likely continue into the summer. Going forward, Housing plans on giving residents a 48-hour notice before shutting off their unit’s water so they can better prepare, as well as spreading out projects so residents won’t experience back-to-back outages. If students are experiencing intense water outage dilemmas, they can submit a work order for Housing to relocate them to a unit with proper amenities.

Has something felt odd about Student Union Green

these couple

“Pianos are not meant to be outside, especially in Dallas,” Goodwin said. “As anybody has recently seen, we can have ice one day and then one-hundred-degree weather the next. All of that is not conducive to a sustainable, well-tuned piano.”

The piano

The piano’s damage doesn’t mean it’s doomed, however. It hasn’t been thrown out – instead, the SU is fixing the keys and tun- director of the Student Wellness Center— said she hoped to continue updating the Wellness Center’s services to keep up with the times.

“We kind of have to relearn how to talk to each other,” Sebeneicher said. “And so we're hoping to take advantage of that and really harp in on consent and respect… we're trying to freshen that up a little bit, make it more exciting.”

UTD’s assault disclosure rate has historically been lower than average. Mark Perry, commander of UTD’s Criminal Investigative Division, said this could be due to the large population of international students who may fear consequences for reporting. However, the law has protections in place to prevent this. Upon request, the victim can fill

8 ing, as well as making other structural repairs, similar to the first time they took the piano offline at the start of the pandemic. The difference this time, though, is the SU doesn’t plan to put the piano back outside SU Green once it is in working order again.

“There are talks of a possible location inside the SU,” Goodwin said. “We have the long view in mind, and we’re trying to iden-

→ SEE PIANO, PAGE 8

Editor-in-Chief Tyler Burkhardt editor@utdmercury.com (972) 883-2294

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Photo Editor Anna Phengsakmueang photo@utdmercury.com utdmercury.com or calling (972) 8832287 and a correction will be published in this space in a future issue.