Hey, Dartmouth feminists! If you're tired of defending Aurora Wells '10's right to draw vajayjays in the D and have sufficiently hollered yourselves hoarse over how outrageously unequal and shallow the female cattle-herding rush process is, I've got something kind of real for you to think about.

For the past two years, Leah Prescott served as Dartmouth's Sexual Abuse Awareness Program (SAAP) coordinator. This summer she announced her resignation. The issue isn't that Prescott left; in many ways, her departure could be seen as a sort of blessing for the Dartmouth community, for reasons that I will examine later. Rather, if you do consider yourself a Dartmouth feminist--or even if you don't, but you believe that sexual assault is a serious issue and one that shouldn't be swept under the rug or quietly ignored--be incensed about this: Prescott still hasn't been replaced.

The SAAP coordinator is in charge of the Sexual Abuse Peer Advisors (SAPA), a collection of students who undergo 22 hours of training to help them guide and support student victims of sexual assault. Their function isn't to counsel, but to provide numbers and names to students who seek counseling (or medical attention, or law enforcement, or understanding). They know the stats; they know the definitions; they know the nitty-gritty ins and outs of date rape, gray rape, black-out rape, and flat-out violent rape. They know whom to call; they know what to say; and they know the procedure for pressing charges, getting a rape kit, alerting deans, and so on. They're a valuable resource on a campus where many social interactions involve alcohol, miscommunication, and confusing hormones. No parents woo, indeed.

Until Dartmouth replaces Prescott, no new SAPAs will undergo training. According to the SAPA blitz bulletin, there are currently 30 active SAPAs on campus. 11 of those are members of the class of 2008. This figure is troubling for several reasons.

The concept of a peer advisor is derived from the thought that student victims will be more comfortable explaining their situations to peers rather than to an administrator. Student advisors are more understanding--they "get" the Dartmouth social scene, they're more sympathetic, they're easier to relate to. That no new '11s are becoming SAPAs means that for the time being, any '11 who suffers from sexual assault will have to speak with an upperclassman if he or she chooses to utilize the SAPA program. This in itself can be an intimidating thought, especially when most of the SAPAs on the list are female--the odd relationship between freshmen women and upper-class women at Dartmouth is notoriously strained, in the cases where it's not utterly non-existent.

Additionally, there's a greater chance that the thirty SAPAs listed are unknown, and will remain unknown in the coming terms, to freshman victims of assault. A great feature of the former SAPA program was that it churned out new peer advisors every other term. New names were always added to the list; new resources for even old victims were always being created. For the foreseeable future, all past, present, and future victims of sexual assault on campus will have to make do with the thirty students listed. If Prescott isn't replaced for the entire year, then that number will drop by about a third come graduation in June.

As I mentioned earlier, Prescott's departure might actually benefit the college in the long run. Considering the fact that she hasn't been replaced, it's time to look critically at the SAAP and the SAPA program, and to suggest advice to provide our future SAAP coordinator on how to improve the system.

This is not to say that Prescott didn't take her job seriously or didn't care about victims of sexual assault. She certainly worked hard and believed fully that she was helping people; in many cases, I'm sure she did. However, Prescott was criticized on multiple occasions for being too much of a yes-man to the administration. She didn't make waves. She believed strongly in bureaucracy and doing things the way they'd always been done. Ultimately, this attitude proved ineffective and more problematic than helpful.

A year ago, I wrote a story that ran in the D that should have served as a catalyst for major change within the SAAP. However, the story ran on the last day of fall term, and on the day of the Rally Against Hatred. It was overshadowed by a social justice matter of a different sort, and ultimately forgotten.

So here's a reminder. My article, found here, ran with a headline that read: SAAP policies limit admin. knowledge of repeat sexual assaulters. And it means exactly what it says. Due to an oversight in Prescott's policies for the SAPA program, she managed to shield herself, and thus the administration, from knowing about repeat sexual offenders.

Student SAPAs, as it turned out, were hearing many of the same offenders' names come from victims' mouths; however, they were asked not to tell each other, or Prescott, or other victims, who those offenders were. Studies on sexual assault have shown that a majority of sexual assaults are committed by a disproportionate number of offenders--one study says that about 91% are committed by 64% of offenders. This means that 34% commit assault once, ostensibly by accident or as a one-time event. It also means that 64% of offenders are committing sexual assaults in multiples. One offender might have six, seven, seventeen victims.

Combine this troubling statistic with the fact that many victims of sexual assault are hesitant to report their assaulters, often because the person was a friend or someone known by the victim. Additionally, in a college setting, assault often coincides with mass consumption of alcohol, which leaves the victim feeling guilty, or somewhat responsible for his or her own victimization. Maybe I was leading him on. Maybe I wasn't clear when I said "no." Maybe I didn't say "no" forcefully enough. Maybe he thought I was being coy.

If the repeat offender statistic turns out to be true, though, it seems that a few men are committing a large number of assaults, many of which are assumed to be one-time events or accidental and unfortunate results of miscommunication. If a victim of sexual assault finds out that the same person also assaulted four other girls, she'd be much less likely to think that she's to blame, or that he made a mistake. I don't have empirical data to back me up, but I'm pretty sure that if a girl realizes that she's been assaulted by a repeat offender, and she has other victims who will support her story, she'd be more likely to pursue charges against the offender. Other people would be more likely to believe her story. She'd be more likely to believe it, as well.

This was all mentioned in the article, and yet nothing changed with regards to Prescott's system of handling her SAPAs. And now she's gone, and there's a vacant position that needs filling, both to train more SAPAs, and to amend the current SAPA confidentiality requirements.

For now, the situation isn't dire. There's a SAAP assistant coordinator who can answer the same questions that Prescott was able to answer. There are thirty active SAPAs on campus. The administration ostensibly takes sexual assault very seriously.

But all this doesn't mean we can sit back and relax. We need a new SAAP coordinator as soon as possible. And we'll need for him or her to be open-minded and willing to listen to criticism. The system is necessary, but it is also flawed. As soon as the next SAAP coordinator is hired, I hope he or she is inundated with information--about Dartmouth, about the social scene, about the assets and drawbacks of the SAPA program, and about what he or she can do to enhance and fix it.

Maybe not as juicy or controversial as a vajayjay pic or the inadequate and totally unfair and disgusting process that is rush, but definitely worth at least as much conversation.