Since the departure of Thema Bryant-Davis, Director of Sexual Harassment/Assault Advising, Resources and Education (SHARE) at University Health Services (UHS), the counseling program has been sluggishly rebuilt and UHS has taken steps to make SHARE more effective in the months ahead.
However, several student advisers have said they have been dissatisfied with the University's lack of communication and fellow advisers' diminishing participation since Bryant-Davis' departure.
"The organization hasn't run as smoothly since Thema's departure," student adviser Josh Goldsmith '07 said. "The students are doing the best we can, but without a full-time coordinator, it's hard to accomplish many of our projects and goals."
Student advisers added that they are unaware of what is occurring at the administrative level.
Student support for the group has begun to falter. Only two out of the 16 peer advisors appeared at the bimonthly meeting Friday due to poor scheduling around exams.
"We really need to stand up for these issues and devote ourselves to making SHARE into a legitimate group," adviser Brette Tannenbaum '07 said, adding that she hopes to accomplish this by increasing SHARE's visibility through the Prince and more student activities. "Then, hopefully the University will respond."
UHS is implementing three major changes to improve SHARE, including the appointment of a new program director.
UHS is looking for "a psychologist or a psychiatric social worker with a specialization in post traumatic stress related to sexual harassment and assault. They are likely to be a very strong clinician and a good educator," Chief Medical Officer Daniel Silverman said.
In the interim, Megan Braun is overseeing student advisers in Bryant-Davis' place and is also a postgraduate fellow at the counseling center. However, part-time employment and other counseling duties have made it difficult for Braun to be as prominent a presence in SHARE as Bryant-Davis had been, she said.
UHS is also lobbying the University to increase the program's funding, which would allow SHARE to function yearlong.
"Obviously sexual harassment and assault don't necessarily take a vacation in July and August," Silverman said. The funding would allow the program to better serve graduate students, faculty and staff members who are on campus during the summer months, he added. UHS may also increase SHARE's support staff.
Finally, the program will be amended to handle only the clinical aspects of sexual harassment cases, and it will not deal with punitive measures for offenders.
All University legal policy and disciplinary action regarding harassment and assault cases will be forwarded to judicial bodies in the offices of the dean of undergraduate life, dean of the faculty or human resources, depending on the University affiliation of the person filing the complaint.
To avoid conflicts of interest, a member of the University's general counsel, not a SHARE counselor, will train these judicial bodies and write policy.
"[Counselors] may be providing counseling for someone who's going through those judicial processes, but not actually doing those judicial processes," Silverman said.
However, some student advisors are concerned that such a clear separation between the counseling and judicial processes may alienate sexual harassment victims.
"[The clinical and judicial representatives] should be in the same building, if not the same office," Braun said. "It gets too confusing for people who are struggling to tell anyone to have to go through different offices."
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