The Sexual Assault Awareness Committee educated students about consent and sexual assault April 19, through a workshop titled “Building a Dialogue of Consent”. 

This workshop was held in the Mockingbird Room of the Carl Reng Student Union and featured guest speaker Rebecca Bailey, education program director of Arkansas Coalition Against Sexual Assault, a group based in Little Rock working to end sexual violence and human trafficking. 

In this workshop, Bailey discussed what consent is, why it is important in every relationship, the ways it is used and its boundaries. 

“It isn’t going to happen overnight but it does happen by us having these kinds of hard conversations and it happens with holding ourselves accountable and each other accountable for what those actions are,” Bailey said.

Jamaica Walker, case manager at the Office of Title IX and Institutional Equity, helped organize the event. 

“Everything that happens outside of campus happens on campus so people on campus need to understand what consent is,” Walker said. “Understanding what consent is can be very important.”

During the workshop, Bailey made points about consent through a game and having students participate in a skit. 

The game was an exercise in setting boundaries across different power dynamics. 

The audience broke into pairs and were directed to ask each other yes or no questions. In the first round, every question had to be answered yes. The second round was set up the same but every question had to be answered no. In the last round participants could answer yes or no but had to explain why. 

The skit was presented by two student attendees, using a fictional scenario to express how easily sexual assault happens in college settings. 

Jacquanay Buford, a senior interdisciplinary studies major from Osceola, Arkansas, attended the event. 

“They did a good job of showing how consent can be misconstrued,” Buford said. “It was entertaining and informative.” 

Omarion Williams, a sophomore criminology major from Forrest City, Arkansas was one of the participants in the skit. He said the event taught him more about how to help other people who may get into one of these situations.

Shye Fischer, special to The Herald, contributed to this report.

Categories: News