Augustana College reported approximately 10 percent of female students will be sexually assaulted during their four years at Augustana. That is compared to the national average of 20 to 25 percent.

Even though Augustana’s number’s are lower than the national average, 10 percent of women out of 2,500 students means 125 women will still be sexually assaulted.

Mark Salisbury, director of institutional research and assessment, said the sexual assault climate survey was conducted to give the college a sense frequency and a greater scope of the college’s climate and perceptions towards sexual assault.

“A subpart of that is sexual assault is a part of a larger problem that is sexual violence, which includes implied violence or intended violence or threatened violence or perceived violence,” said Salisbury. “Then there’s this whole other category of unwanted sexual contact: cat calls, gestures, a whole category of things that are inappropriate that contribute to this large climate question.”

Out of the approximately 2,500 students at Augustana, 701, or 29.3 percent, responded to the survey. Salisbury said this sample makes him reasonably comfortable in terms of accuracy. The national average of the 57 schools surveyed was at 18.8 percent. Evelyn Campbell, dean of students, sent out the highlights of the surveys findings to the campus on Oct. 4 via email. The full survey is available through Salisbury.

“The goal wasn’t to come out here and do this study so we could prove to everybody that we’re wrong or that we’re right,” said Salisbury. “It was to give us better information to actually then get better as a place.”

One of the concerning results Campbell pointed out in her email was that 53.1 percent of students said they would intervene in a sexual assault, which was below the national average of 61.7 percent. Augustana respondents stated they received 17 percent more training than other institutions nationally.

“Obviously, the training isn’t hitting the mark,” said Campbell. “There’s a lot of different ways to train and motivate people. I mean, we are trying to assess…what’s going to make our students really take (it) to heart?”

Campbell said the Not Anymore course, which is an online mandatory class for all upperclassmen that teaches students about consent, bystander intervention and sexual violence, will provide a foundational knowledge she hopes to build on every year with additional courses. One idea would be Mentors in Violence Prevention (MVP) train the trainer sessions, which teaches about leadership, gender roles and sexual violence. Campbell said she plans on having new trainings on sexual assault awareness every year. First-years are also expected to take the Not Anymore course when winter break begins.

Jessica Nodulman, communication studies professor, said one issue that came up in her public health communications class that developed the Project SAVE sexual assault awareness campaign was the idea that the first-year orientation program needs to be strengthened. As Project SAVE’s faculty adviser, she invites anyone to share their ideas with the organization.

The survey also found Augustana students were ranked 12 percent lower than the national average in terms of knowledge about college investigation procedures. Campbell said the policy was in the Not Anymore course, and since students had to sign-off that they read the policy she hopes students at least skimmed it.

Nodulman said this statistic is troubling since the college clearly states the policy.

“It does highlight for me how good it is we have this data that then the we can start targeting efforts on exactly what we need to communicate better to students,” said Nodulman.

The survey found 92 percent of men and 77 percent of women felt safe on campus. Nodulman said this finding is not surprising since it is a reality that women are more likely to be the victims of gender violence based on statistics between the two sexes.

“It would be great, then, to have some educational opportunities for some of the men to kind-of maybe understand what it may be like to be in a different type of situation. Sometimes, when we have this privilege, we don’t even necessarily understand what it could be like.”

She said this could tie into better bystander intervention training since there would be more male allies on-campus.

In terms of the perception of the administration respecting what students think, 75.9 percent of students agreed. David Sommers and Jackie Jastrzebski, the Student Government Association president and vice president, said they are hosting a question panel comprised of members of SGA and the administration on hot topics, one of which one of the topics addressed will be sexual assault. Sommers said this panel is to make the administration more comfortable and approachable.