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Sexual Assault Awareness Week kicks off Monday at College of Charleston

Post & Courier - 4/2/2018

After she was sexually assaulted in February 2017, Kallie Golicher, a senior marketing major at the College of Charleston, struggled with post-traumatic stress, anxiety and depression.

She felt dirty and alone.

That changed as she wrestled through recovery, when Golicher realized so many others had shared a similar experience.

"I figured out there were a bunch of students and faculty members actually who were going through the exact same thing as me or have gone through it," she said. "I was sick of hearing every story, and I felt I have a platform now and a voice that matters."

Golicher and a committee of almost 30 students organized Sexual Assault Awareness Week, which kicks off on Monday at the college with a slew of events aimed at empowering survivors and destigmatizing sexual violence.

The six-day schedule includes a seminar on bystander intervention, a jiu-jitsu self-defense demonstration and a workshop on identifying unhealthy relationships. It ends on April 9 with free testing for sexually transmitted infections in the Stern Center ballroom.

A charity bake sale and dodgeball tournament on Wednesday will benefit Charleston's Dee Norton Child Advocacy Center and Childhelp, a national nonprofit dedicated to preventing and treating child abuse.

"Most people know a survivor somehow and it’s just not talked about as much as I think it needs to be," said 19-year-old freshman Bailey Jackson, one of the student organizers behind Sexual Assault Awareness Week. "One of the goals of the week, I hope, is that we really open up a discussion on campus and in the community that this is a thing that’s OK to talk about and needs to be talked about so we can work on solving the problem."

Rape is the most commonly reported criminal offense on the College of Charleston's campus, according to data the college is required to submit to the U.S. Department of Education. In 2016, the most recent year for which data are available, the school reported nine rapes on campus, all at student housing facilities. It reported 16 campus rapes in the prior two years.

In October, a student reported that she had been sexually assaulted by an apparent stranger who forced his way into her dorm room early one morning. Authorities released a sketch of the suspect, but no one was arrested. For Jackson, who lives in a campus residence hall, news of the assault was a wake-up call.

"It was a bit of shock because I was so used to my friends coming and going (at my dorm)," Jackson said. "It just sort of made me aware that this does happen even here and there's danger out there."

Golicher said she hopes Sexual Assault Awareness Week will arm students and others with information to help prevent a sexual assault or at least cope with the fallout. In the wake of her assault, Gollich turned to the college's Office of Victim Services and sought therapy through its Department of Counseling and Substance Abuse Services.

Although she reported her assault to police, Golicher didn't press charges. As a result, she said she "felt a lot of guilt because it could happen to someone else."

Organizing Sexual Assault Awareness Week, Golicher said, is her way of turning her experience into something positive for other survivors.

Lauryn Eason, a 19-year-old sophomore and member of the student-organizing committee, was sexually assaulted at her previous college. She said Sexual Assault Awareness Week would have helped her when she was struggling in the aftermath of her ordeal.

"For a long time, I really blamed myself and thought it was my fault because I put myself in that situation and because even though I said, ‘no,’ I didn't fight back," Eason said. "I think that with everything we’re planning this week, if I had that knowledge and support system before it happened, I would have either been able to have handled it a lot better or it wouldn't have happened at all."

For more information on Sexual Assault Awareness Week, including the schedule of events, follow @cofc_saaw on Instagram or visit today.cofc.edu.