Sigma Phi Epsilon is taking an active role in combating the culture that breeds sexual assault by hosting Sexual Assault Awareness Week, with the goal of driving a conversation about the issue.
Charlie Gray, president of Sigma Phi Epsilon and a junior studying zoology, said that it’s “no secret” that sexual assaults are a problem on college campuses. According to University Police statistics, there were six cases of “forcible sex offenses” on campus in 2012 and 2013. Both 2014 and 2015 had five rape reports each.
In August 2014, an anonymous female student filed a police report accusing a member of Sigma Phi Epsilon of committing sexual assault at a fraternity house, according to The News and Observer. However, after an extensive investigation by University Police, the accusation was found to be false.
“Being chapter president I hear all the statistics, false reports [of rape] are very rare and even more cases happen and don’t get reported,” Gray said. “We just felt like it’s partly our problem, even if SigEp isn’t directly doing it, we are associated with that community and we wanted to get people talking. Maybe more fraternities will do more in the future.”
The events scheduled for next week include a screening of the documentary “The Hunting Ground” which follows two UNC Chapel Hill students Andrea Pine and Annie Clark who were raped early in their college years and eventually formed an organization to help other victims of assault at campuses across the nation.
NC State pitched in to purchase the documentary so that SigEp could screen it on Monday, according to Gray.
“[The Hunting Ground] is very gripping and it’s very explicit in terms of how it portrays the situation,” said Chapter Resident Director of Sigma Phi Epsilon, Tyler Allen. “It doesn’t hold anything back and I think it will be one of the events that hits home with a lot of the students on campus.”
Tuesday at Hunt Library, SigEp will hold a panel of survivors and activists on what constitutes sexual assault and how students can make a difference. Wednesday at Carmichael Gymnasium, university police officers will hold a workshop on self-defense tactics.
Allen said that Sig Ep’s Sexual Assault Awareness Week shows that its members are committed to fighting this issue, because chances are, we all know someone who has been a victim.
“I think this week speaks for itself as to the commitment that [SigEp] has to making sure that this is an issue that is not only addressed but addressed from within a fraternity,” Allen said. “I really think that says a lot to not only have men who are advocating for this but to have an entire chapter of a fraternity advocating for this.”
Sig Ep’s Sexual Assault Awareness Week came about after the fraternity’s Philanthropy Board, made up of Mark Hove, a sophomore studying industrial design, and Brentley Hovey, a junior studying chemical engineering, decided to continue their service efforts into the spring.
Members of the board approached the Women’s Center several months ago about hosting events as part of Sexual Assault Awareness Month, who then collaborated on the content of the events that would make up the week.
Last month, the brothers of SigEp took part in a two-hour training session with representatives from the Women’s Center, the Counseling Center and Fraternity and Sorority Life to talk about the types of scenarios that can lead to sexual violence, methods of bystander intervention and resources available on campus to help victims, according to Rape Prevention Education Coordinator for the NC State Women’s Center, Sara Forcella.
“We spent time discussing all of their events and ideas to make sure that they supported the culture we are trying to create at NC State, as well as took into account the possibility of triggering past survivors,” Forcella said in an email.
Hove said that the brothers were asked probing moral questions meant to challenge them to define what sexual assault is and what they can do to stop it.
“I learned that everyone has a lot of preconceived notions and that plays an important role in their decision making so it’s really important to establish a definition of sexual assault and you can’t get there without talking about it,” Hove said. “It’s not something that you can expect to take care of itself over time, you have to be proactive.”
Hovey came out of the trainings with a tool to employ if he ever found himself in a situation where a sexual assault may occur: a moral compass, as described by one of the training leaders as a method of closing your eyes and imagining how you would respond if someone that you cared about were in that situation to guide how he treats others.
Gray said that the personal involvement of the more than 100 brothers in SigEp was a major concern of hosting the event.
“Since we were putting our names on it, we made sure our brothers were knowledgeable about it,” Gray said. “We thought it would be shallow to slap our name on an event without having knowledge of it.”
