SEPTEMBER 18 SEPTEMBER 24, 2018
FEATURES
UNIVERSITY OF ALASKA ANCHORAGE
OPINION
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Remembering Dale Tran
THENORTHERNLIGHT.ORG
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New chancellor is exactly what UAA needs
Red Zone: Mandatory Title IX training explained
By Cheyenne Mathews cmathews@thenorthernlight.org
PHOTO COURTESY OF ROBERT MESHER
Dalee Sambo Dorough speaking before the Inuit Circumpolar Council General Assembly in Utqiagvik. In July, Dorough was elected as the international chair for the ICC.
Former professor elected international chair of Inuit Circumpolar Council By Robin O’Donoghue features2@thenorthernlight.org
In July, the Inuit Circumpolar Council General Assembly converged in Utqiaġvik to approve a new declaration and elect a new international chair to oversee the implementation of the organization’s priorities. At the assembly, Dalee Sambo Dorough, former associate professor of political science, was unanimously elected by the body to serve as the international chair of the ICC, a position with a term limit of four years that rotates between Alaska, Canada, Greenland and Russia. “In the next four years, I will do everything that I can to make you happy. Not only for you, here in this room, but more important to all those Inuit across the entire stretch of Inuit Nunaat. Quyanaq. Nakurmik. Quyaanasuaq. I’m honored,” Dorough said before the assembly. The ICC is a non-governmental multilateral organization that formed in 1980 with the goal of securing the rights, interests and development of Inuit cultures and languages. As international chair, Dorough will preside over four vice chairs from each of the member states and two executive council members from each country. Dorough first got involved with the organization in its early stages of development in 1977
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as a volunteer and has been involved with the ICC’s work since the very beginning. In her closing remarks given before the general assembly, Dorough explained that she had disliked high school so intensely that she gave the principal an ultimatum: to allow her to develop her own independent study classes or drop out. “It was one of the ways I got out of high school,” Dorough said. “I developed some independent studies classes in political science to satisfy the credits in needed to graduate.” After high school, from 198289, Dorough was the executive director for the ICC’s Alaska office and additionally served as the special assistant to the first president of the ICC, Hans-Pavia Rosing. Dorough first learned that she was under serious consideration for the position about a month prior to the ICC’s general assembly in Utqiaġvik. While the position was open to any Alaskan, as this term is Alaska’s turn to chair the ICC, other candidates withdrew themselves for consideration upon learning of Dorough’s candidacy. While Dorough is enthusiastic about being the new chair, the full-time position with the ICC means resigning from the UAA Political Science Department, where she has taught since 2008. “I’m going to miss teaching,”
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she said. Dorough specialized in teaching classes relating to Arctic policy and indigenous issues, such as Comparative Northern Politics. “All of the courses I’ve taught have been in political science or cross-listed with Alaska Native Studies indigenous issues, and you can see how those two intersect when the rest of the world catches up and realizes that the United States is an Arctic nation with indigenous people,” Dorough said. For many students and colleagues at UAA, Dorough’s departure from the university is bittersweet. Delaney Thiele, a junior majoring in political science and minoring in Alaska Native Studies, first met Dorough taking her Tribes, Nations, and People’s class in the fall semester of 2017. “Professor Dorough has a wealth of knowledge,” Thiele said. “As an Alaskan Native person, I have been inspired to focus on indigenous rights and advocacy work because of Professor Dorough.” The faculty of the Political Science department also feel Dorough’s absence. “Professor Dorough will be missed by her students, myself and the Department of Political Science, as well as the
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Two years ago, degree-seeking students entering the University of Alaska were not required to complete training on sexual assault prevention. At the same time, a 2016 study by the Alaska Justice Statistical Analysis Center estimated that one in nine UA students had experienced sexual misconduct, sexual assault or both. In 2014, the Office for Civil Rights began a compliance review of the university that found that the UA System had “violated Title IX with respect [to] its response to sexual harassment complaints.” In the fall of 2017, the University of Alaska underwent a hasty implementation of mandatory Title IX: Sex and Gender Based Discrimination Prevention training in an effort to meet an OCR deadline. UA was required to send OCR documentation that showed how the university was training students on sexual assault prevention by Dec. 30 of that same year. The university is required to be proactive about preventing sexual misconduct under Title IX which states, “no person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.” The OCR review into the university and the implementation of the mandatory Title IX training are directly related. In 2017, the university signed the Voluntary Resolution Agreement with the OCR. This contract requires the university to do everything from creating a chief Title IX officer position and revising sex discrimination policies to implementing mandatory sexual assault prevention training for all students, staff and faculty. One of the problems UA Title IX officials first encountered was that the VRA assumes the complying college has a traditional student population where things like annual in-person orientations occur. Students are supposed to attend “information sessions” that bring awareness to the prohibition of sex discrimination and teach students youtube.com/tnlnews
how to recognize and prevent sexual misconduct under the requirements of the VRA. Chief Title IX Officer, Mary Gower, said the university chose to use a system-wide online training to be more accessible to the average UA student. Inperson training is also available at all of the main UA campuses. Last year UAA faced mixed responses to the training from faculty and students. Some students stated that the training was retraumatizing for survivors of sexual misconduct, and so the College of Health released a letter that included an option for students to “opt-out” of the training. That “opt-out” is still available for students this year and can found on the webpage of the Office of Equity and Compliance. Opt-out forms submitted last year are carried over to this year, according to UAA Prevention and Education Coordinator in the Office of Equity and Compliance Bridget Coffou. Last year, UAA struggled to juggle conflicting priorities in maintaining enrollment and reaching 100 percent completion for student training. Last year’s trainings had unclear consequences for not taking the training, that were later amended to prevent students from withdrawing from the university. The initial consequence for failing to complete it by the fall deadline was to have a hold placed on a student’s account. This meant that students would be unable to register for spring classes, continue to live in student housing or withdraw from fall courses. The administration later amended the consequence so that the holds were only active until after priority registration periods had passed. This year, UAA has stated that the consequence for failing to take an in-person training, complete online training or fill out the opt-out form by the Nov. 2 deadline would be a priority registration hold. The hold will be lifted after priority registration ends at 11:30 p.m. on Nov. 25. Last year, UAA students had the highest rate of training completion out of all the main administrative units at 86 percent. 69 percent of UAF student completed the training by Nov. 9 and 62 percent of UAS students completed the training. Coffou is responsible for leading the in-person sexual assault prevention training. Inperson training will be held Monday from Sept. 24 - Oct. 29, 5-6 p.m. and Tuesday, Oct. 16 - 23, 2-3 p.m. in the Student Union Leadership Lab, according to an email sent from the Office of Equity and Compliance to the UAA student population. soundcloud.com/tnlnews