IFC trains assault prevention

The Men Against Rape and Sexual Assault Program is working to teach men in greek life about sexual assault and how to recognize and stop it. 

The program hosted a two-hour training session attended by around 120 fraternity members last night.

“I think that fraternities are important on campus, and I think greek life is important on campus,” said Mark Houlemarde, the outreach intern at the Sexual Assault Crisis Services of the IU Health Center. “But we’ve definitely noticed a problem.”

The former IFC vice president of membership involvement, Grant Ryan, realized the gravity of this issue and decided to work with SACS to create the MARS Program.
Each fraternity on campus was required to send at least two members to the training session.

The program began with a presentation by senior Sean Ndebele, the current IFC vice president of membership involvement, and senior Ward Weber, the IFC vice president of standards.

Ndebele and Weber’s presentation emphasized the importance of consent. They also discussed the impact of alcohol and suggestive themes at fraternity parties.

“The culture here at IU is to drink as much as you can for as long as you can,” Ndebele said. “This attitude can lead to sexual assault. Seventy percent of women and 80 percent of men had been drinking when a sexual assault occurred.”

The men reminded the attendees of the negative consequences that result from rape accusations, like social probation, questions from potential employers and media
attention.

“You don’t want to wear those letters on your chest and have people look at you and say you’re part of the ‘rape frat,’” Weber said.

The program included an activity in which Houlemarde asked the men to stand when he mentioned something they agreed with or had experienced.

Half of the room stood when asked if they know a victim of sexual assault.

Only one person stood when asked if they had heard one of their brothers suggesting using alcohol as a means of hooking up with a girl.

Houlemarde said it was likely not everyone in the room was telling the truth.

“Men are not going to feel comfortable talking about that stuff in a room with people they don’t know,” he said. “In smaller groups the conversations are a little different. I can understand why there might be some hesitance, but it’s really positive to get so much representation from the different houses.”

Houlemarde also discussed the difficulty of measuring progress made by spreading awareness.

“When it comes to issues of sexual assault the more awareness we raise, we won’t necessarily see a decrease in numbers,” he said. “If we get more awareness out there more people feel comfortable reporting incidents of sexual assaults so it’s hard to perceive progress. We want people to feel more comfortable reporting this but we also want people to stop committing these crimes in the first place.”

Weber ended the presentation by reminding brothers of the importance of simply talking about sexual assault issues.

“We’re not saying you’re going to go home tonight and totally eliminate sexual assault tomorrow,” Weber said.

“We’re trying to get you guys started talking about these difficult topics. We have a problem it needs to be addressed. Let’s just start talking about it and get this thing
going.”