On Oct. 28, Congressman Eric Sorensen announced that Augustana College was awarded a $400,000 grant from the Office on Violence Against Women (OVW). This grant was renewed for another three years after the college previously received it in the year 2020-2021. The money was given to the college to prevent violence and further educate the campus community.
The $400,000 government grant from the OVW has a very competitive application process. Since the college had previously received this grant, during the application process Augustana had to state how the money had previously gone into use.
In the application, it was also stated what they plan to use this money for in the upcoming years. Assistant Dean and Director of Student Well Being Farrah Roberts worked alongside a group of Augustana grant writers and faculty members to get this application ready.
“Augustana has a team of grant writers that we contract with, but really they’re just the ones that kind of put the information together in the way the grant people want it. But I assembled a team of people here that would know a lot of what we’re trying to do,” Roberts said. “So I had a team of 3-4 people to add to what we wanted to accomplish, what we already have accomplished [and] what we think the issues still are.”
While writing the grant application, Augsutana reviewed their past couple of years and decided what services they would want to focus on in the upcoming years. Services like providing prevention education to students, faculty and law enforcement along with providing victim service were identified within their application process.
“It is all aimed at what you want it to be, which is prevention, victim services, education of law enforcement, review of support of the conduct process,” Roberts said. “And then, under each of those categories, they have subcategories.”
The Office of Sexual Assault Prevention Education (OSAPE) will be able to use money from this grant to help educate and prevent sexual assault around campus. OSAPE hosts many events throughout the year including tables in the Brew and BINGO, while also providing education to many student groups on campus.
This grant will affect the whole campus since OSAPE has collaborations with many offices including the Office of Student Life and the Office of Student Inclusion and Diversity. Zachary Draves, program director of OSAPE, educates and plans activities for the campus community.
Draves said OSAPE will use the funding to revitalize its strategic plan, focusing on the target area categories Roberts listed.
“Looking into those critical areas and seeing how we can strengthen those relationships, [OSAPE will] continue to try new things with the partnerships that we have aligned ourselves with, [such as] athletic teams, student groups, Greek Life chapters and things of that nature,” Draves said.
This grant will allow offices like OSAPE to continue to educate the campus community and host events around campus. Senior and OSAPE social media peer educator Janey Locander helps plan and promote events throughout the year.
“This is such a cool thing for our office because as always we’re looking for funding opportunities to better bring not only like promotional materials that we’re passing out at tables, but also the more money that our office is given the more opportunity we have to plan other events,” Locander said.
Janey Locander previously worked for the Observer.
