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THE STUDENT VOICE SINCE 1904

SPORTS

INSIDE New Student Senate intern talks about her first month connecting Haskell, KU and the city

Kansas basketball ousts Syracuse behind high score

p. 2

from Devonte’ Graham The University Daily Kansan

vol. 135 // iss. 29 Mon.,Dec. 4, 2017

A shoebox in an attic revealed a forgotten part of an alumnus’s family history p. 5

SEE BASKETBALL • PAGE 8

Supporting Survivors

The Kansan sat down with CARE Coordinator Merrill Evans for a Q&A over the newly implemented Interpersonal Violence Survivor Fund

Illustration by Gracie Williams/KANSAN

PEYTON KRAUS @peytonkraus12

KANSAN: How much have you used so far?

In the month since it launched, five University student victims of sexual assault have received monetary assistance from a new Interpersonal Violence Survivor Fund. One student who needed to escape an abusive relationship was given money for a housing deposit. Others received financial help to pay for post-assault medical care. Student Senate began the fund last spring and, along with the University’s Panhellenic Association, Interfraternity Council and Kansas Athletics, has contributed about $10,000 so far. It became officially available to survivors in October. The fund is administered by KU CARE Coordinator Merrill Evans. The Kansan recently interviewed Evans about the new service and the process of applying. The following Q&A has been edited for brevity and clarity.

Evans: So we started with $10,000. [...] I would say we have utilized about $1,300 so far.

KANSAN: For the fund, can you tell me a little bit about how that came about? Merrill Evans: It’s actually the Interpersonal Violence Survivor Fund, and it’s an endowment account. I think the reason why you didn’t hear about it for a while is it took a bit of time to get it up and running, and get all the systems in place. It was really Student Senate wanted to give some money to survivors of gender-based violence and they were the initiatives. They kind of started that process.

KANSAN: What kind of assistance does the fund help with? Evans: So far, we have been able to secure a deposit for an individual who was getting out of an abusive relationship, so she had a safe place to live. We were able to purchase bedding for a rape survivor, and not just scratchy old housing sheets, but she was able to get the exact comforter that she had came to college with that meant a lot to her, so we were able to replace, which was really nice. The biggest need that I have seen is post-assault medical care, so individuals who choose to go through a rape kit, which is now called a SANE Exam, which is a Sexual Assault Nurse Exam, there are some costs that come with that that aren’t covered, so it’s really important for us to be able to pay for that, so their insurance isn’t paying bills, so their parents aren’t finding out if they’re not wanting to disclose that to their parents. I think what we’re going to see is a need, even if they have labs done here at Watkins, we can pay for that bill pretty quickly. If a student comes in and had been assaulted and they need access to Plan B, we can pay for that, and then the fund will be able to reimburse. KANSAN: Have you had any other donors

wanting to help out yet? Evans: You know we have. We have had some anonymous donations — that’s really pretty exciting. We have had some staff, I believe here at KU, who are doing contributions out of their paycheck. I felt very humbled when I found out there was staff and then another anonymous donation that was matching that. It was very overwhelming, so that was really exciting. KANSAN: How are students able to come to you to then have this fund assist them? Evans: Really I would just like to have a short brief meeting with students. I would prefer to have a faceto-face discussion with them; I don’t need to hear their whole narrative or their whole story, and then we can kind of go from there. There have been five students who have benefited from the fund so far, and a lot of them are students I have worked with on and off over my time here. I also have a very close relationship with the local rape crisis center, the Sexual Trauma and Abuse Care Center here in Lawrence, so they can refer students to me as well. KANSAN: Do you work with the counseling services to not only just help them monetarily, but also through psychological help? Evans: Yeah, for sure. There is some discussion around being able to pay for therapy services, and that’s definitely something that

this fund would be able to provide. KANSAN: So it hasn’t yet? Evans: We haven’t seen that need yet, but it’s definitely there. KANSAN: What is the time frame you hope for when someone comes to you and then when you can help them with this fund? Evans: The way that this system is set up now is there’s a committee of three staff here at KU that are in charge of approving requests that I make, and the unofficial agreement is that they will respond within 48 hours so that we can get the monies turned around really quickly. The deposit, for example, that we paid had to be paid by a certain time, so time sensitivity is definitely something that we are mindful of, and we’ll make happen. KANSAN: So [the fund] was talked about this spring, but this fall has been huge in Hollywood and across the country with the #MeToo campaign. Do you think the timing of this is going to impact students coming to you and being able to look for that help? Evans: I think it’s really empowering and really wonderful that there is an opportunity for individuals to start talking about incidents of gender-based violence where maybe they felt like they didn’t have the space to do that before. I think some of the stigma and shame around it is being reduced, which is

immense. If you really look at the clinical implications of rape or sexual abuse, the silence, the secrecy, the self-judgment, the stigma, the shame, those are all of the things that create really long-term lasting negative consequences that can result in the development of post-traumatic stress disorder. So really just having a climate in which it’s okay to talk about it and to stand up and say, “Yeah me too. That happened to me too,” I think is really empowering. I really hope as a society this is an opportunity for change. I think if you think about it, when does it stop. [...] I think KU has done a remarkable job over the past couple of years of really changing the dialogue. [...] If the system is doing it well, students will feel empowered, and they will feel that there is support and that they have people that have their back. KANSAN: Have you seen that reach students yet? Evans: Yeah, yeah totally. I mean there is something kind of satisfying from watching your rapist be expelled from the University you know, I mean, at the end of the day. My motto for students is the only right choice is your choice, so my role is to really like educate and validate and support them and give with as much information as they can about all these various options and then they can make the choice. — Edited by Gabrielle Cinnamon


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