Culture of Care, Safe Sisters, Men Against Rape and Sexual Assault and a large crowd of students came together for an event to raise awareness for sexual assault.
“Honestly, this was only planned about three weeks ago, so it’s pretty cool that we came up with the idea and got it up and running so quickly,” Reese Dorger, president of Sigma Chi, said. “About 15 of our brothers took it upon themselves to come together and plan everything.”
The awareness event is primarily in response to recent misconduct in the IU greek community as well as a desire to use their fraternity’s house in a positive manner, Dorger said.
“It’s an opportunity for all of these organizations to work together actually at a fraternity, which is a little unusual,” Dorger said.
Many types of philanthropy events in the greek system focus on raising money for an external cause or organization, but the real goal of the event was to increase awareness of an issue within the community, Dorger said.
The event featured a live band and food from BuffaLouie’s at the Gables, as well as numerous speakers. Culture of Care also had a table at the event.
“After recent events, as well as the release of the climate survey from the University, it’s obviously really important to do our part to educate students,” said Mackenzie Conrad, a senior and co-chair of Culture of Care. “Now, more than ever, it’s an important thing to discuss so we can try to nip issues in the bud.”
The sexual assault climate survey, released Tuesday by IU, made it clear that a stronger stance on the issue of sexual assault is necessary, Conrad said. According to the report, 86 percent of women sexually assaulted at IU as of last fall did not report the incident.
“It’s really important for students to realize the need for a better understanding of these issues,” Conrad said. “That is the only way we can start talking about it and try to change it.”
Dylan Lanoff, a junior and a co-director for Safe Sisters, a sexual assault awareness organization within the IU Panhellenic Association, spoke briefly in front of the crowd.
She focused on consent, coercion, rape and alcohol, emphasizing the importance of going deep into the details of these issues.
Representatives from Culture of Care and MARS also spoke, and a panel of students fielding questions on sexual assault was featured as well.
Sigma Chi did not initially contact these organizations because of the limited time frame they had to plan the event, said Cullen Hoene, a sophomore in Sigma Chi who helped plan the event.
“First we started just reaching out to other fraternities and sororities, but we realized we needed some other leadership in order to make it a better event,” Hoene said. “Sexual assault is a problem that’s not just affecting greek life. It’s a bigger issue that affects humanity as a whole.”
