Visions of Women has served the following campuses:
Allen University
Benedict College
Claflin University
Columbia College
Lander University
Presbyterian College
University of South Carolina (Columbia)
If you are interested in learning how Visions of Women can serve your tech, college or university
campus please email Admin at [email protected]
Things we do at your campus:
- Host workshops that discuss domestic violence, healthy relationships and provides resources
- to help you get out of unhealthy relationships.
- Provide outreach and education for students with information tables and provide primary intervention tools.
- We give scholarships to a member or student from a college where they have experience domestic violence and trying to further their education through the adversities of trauma.
- Monthly support group sessions are available on our virtual platform once a month if students
- are in need of a space to talk and receive resources.
- If a Visions of Women group is active on campus, they will collaborate with other groups, host domestic violence, mental health, or sexual health panels for students.
You can become a member on campus by:
- 1. Joining a Visions of Women group on campus.
- 2. Accumulating 5 hours a semester of community service.
Being an active member of Visions of Women on a college campus, means each student must
uphold being active within the community and their campus. Each semester, members must
accumulate/earn about 5 community service hours, which will equal to 10 in total for each school
term.
The student can earn more service hours over the school term; however, if volunteer hours
are earned outside of the organization or school campus, it must be signed off by an executive
over the volunteer work. The following counts as service hours for Visions of Women on Campus groups:
- Attending V.O.W. meetings virtually or in person and staying for the entirety of the
- meeting
- Attending V.O.W. events for its entirety
- Helping to set up for events or cleaning up after events.
- Preparing goodie bags and printing or typing up information for informational tables or
- interest tables
- Attending informational tables (consists of swapping out shifts/hours for the table).
VAWA ACT
Under the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), colleges and universities are required to report domestic violence, dating violence, and stalking, beyond crime categories the Clery Act already mandates; adopt certain student discipline procedures, such as for notifying purported victims of their rights; and adopt certain institutional policies to address and prevent campus sexual violence, such as to train in particular respects pertinent institutional personnel.
Domestic violence includes asserted violent misdemeanor and felony offenses
committed by the victim’s current or former spouse, current or former cohabitant,
person similarly situated under domestic or family violence law, or anyone else
protected under domestic or family violence law.
Dating violence means violence by a person who has been in a romantic or
intimate relationship with the victim. Whether there was such relationship will be
determined by its length, type, and frequency of interaction.
Stalking means a course of conduct directed at a specific person that would
cause a reasonable person to fear for her, his, or others’ safety, or to suffer
substantial emotional distress.
How to to be in a healthy relationship
Set Boundaries
Setting boundaries about your personal space and lifestyle are a must. A good partner will want to see you grow and support you in a positive way. Setting boundaries creates the tone to your relationship. Building any relationship takes time.
Communicate Effectively
Listen to your partner with respect and be a good listener. Talk to your partner and be clear about what you want. You will not always agree and that is okay but BE CLEAR. Truly mean what you are saying.
Be Confident
Be yourself don’t try to be someone else. The right person will accept you for who you are.
Be Kind
Love and treat others the way you want to be treated; this may be cliche but sometimes we need a reminder to be kind and respect one another.
Be Honest
Sometimes being honest can be a challenge, unless you don’t mind being blunt. Even when being honest can make you feel uncomfortable or make you feel like you don’t want to hurt the other persons feelings, be honest about things in a relationship. Be clear on what you need from your partner so they can decide what they need in a relationship. Remember that it is okay to disagree. We are all different with different opinions and personalities.
Talk About Sexual Health
Sex is nothing new and for centuries it has been looked at as a shameful part of humanity, but sex is meant to be. Talk about it and be CLEAR on your desires for sex or your desires to not be sexually active. Be Straight up because YOUR ConSenT is a MUST. No means NO and yes means YES.
Be Attitude
Cary yourself with the upmost respected platform. Having a good attitude through school, in a relationship, at home, and around your peers is so important. Be your attitude on the inside and out.
Below are ideas you can use to raise awareness on your campus:
Start the #beautifulpeoplecampaign on campus by sharing stories and statics on social media. For more information visit https://visionsofwomen.org/the-campaign/
Stop the Cycle event created by Visions of Women LU: Find an unused bicycle. You can ask a local recreation center for a bike if you don’t have one. Tell the lender about the importance of what the bike will be used for to raise awareness towards domestic violence. Make sure you decorate the bike purple to signify domestic violence awareness. Throughout the month you may choose to move the location of the bike and share domestic violence statistics and use hashtag signs. You can also get people to take a picture of the bike and post it. Make this a movement. Make this meaningful by encouraging students to post and use your hashtag. You can even make this a discussion before the month is over with a panel or group discussions on healthy and unhealthy relationships. Tag your school and have fun with this. Make this conversation comfortable by getting the campus involved and showing school spirit and talking about the importance of school safety.
Turn your campus purple. Get students, and staff to support domestic violence awareness month by wearing purple for a day and take a campus group picture with everyone in their purple during the day to show support in your community.
Hold a candle light visual and remember the lives of those who have lost their lives due to domestic violence. You can even choose to have a speaker to tell about their experience going through domestic violence.
Have open discussion topics about healthy and unhealthy relationships with everyone so they can talk about their differences and experiences. This is also a good time to talk about campus safety.
Have a panel with your Campus President, Title XI coordinator, school campus police officers, and local domestic violence advocates to strike the conversation about domestic violence and sexual assault education, safety, and resources. This is a great time for students to ask questions and address concerns they may have.
Here are the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence Statistics for Campuses:
- 25% of female students experience sexual assault over the course of their college career.
- 53% of victims of domestic violence were abused by a current or former boyfriend or girlfriend.
- 21% of college students report having experienced dating violence by a current partner.
- 32% of college students experienced dating violence by a previous partner.
- 13% of college women report they were forced to have sex by a dating partner.
- 60% of acquaintance rapes on college campuses occur in casual or steady dating relationships.
- 13% of college women report they have been stalked – nearly half of those were by a current or ex-boyfriend.
Visit the Clery center at https://clerycenter.org/policy-resources/vawa/ for more information on Compliance Requirements of the VAWA amendments to the Clery Act.
Title IX
Title IX applies to schools, local and state educational agencies, and other institutions that receive federal financial assistance from the Department. These recipients include approximately 17,600 local school districts, over 5,000 postsecondary institutions, and charter schools, for-profit schools, libraries, and museums. Also included are vocational rehabilitation agencies and education agencies of 50 states, the District of Columbia, and territories of the United States.
A recipient institution that receives Department funds must operate its education program or activity in a nondiscriminatory manner free of discrimination based on sex, including sexual orientation and gender identity. Some key issue areas in which recipients have Title IX obligations are: recruitment, admissions, and counseling; financial assistance; athletics; sex-based harassment, which encompasses sexual assault and other forms of sexual violence; treatment of pregnant and parenting students; treatment of LGBTQI+ students; discipline; single-sex education; and employment. Also, no recipient or other person may intimidate, threaten, coerce, or discriminate against any individual for the purpose of interfering with any right or privilege secured by Title IX or its implementing regulations, or because the individual has made a report or complaint, testified, assisted, or participated or refused to participate in a proceeding under Title IX.
For a recipient to retaliate in any way is considered a violation of Title IX. The Department’s Title IX regulations (Volume 34, Code of Federal Regulations, Part 106) provide additional information about the forms of discrimination prohibited by Title IX.
Code of Federal Regulations: https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-34/subtitle-B/chapter-I/part-106?toc=1
U.S. Department of Education: https://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/docs/tix_dis.html (Title IX regulations)
What are some examples of sex discrimination?
Under Title IX, sex discrimination can take many forms, such as:
Denying admission of a person into an educational or training program on the basis of sex;
Disqualifying a person for a research position on the basis of sex when it is irrelevant to ability to perform the job;
Providing unequal educational resources to students of one sex compared to another;
Engaging in gender –based or sexual harassment such as making unwelcome sexual comments, advances, and/or name-calling on the basis of sex.
The Campus Sexual Violence Elimination Act (Campus SaVE Act) – of 2013 amends the Clery Act and was designed to help colleges better protect their students and employees from sexual violence. SaVE was designed as a companion to Title IX to bolster the responses to and prevention of sexual violence in higher education. SaVE requires colleges to increase transparency about the scope of sexual violence on campus, guarantee victims enhanced rights, provide for standards in institutional conduct proceedings, and provide campus community-wide prevention educational programming.
How Title IX Laws have affected higher education:
Colleges must be proactive in ensuring that the campus is free of sex discrimination. You are protected under Title IX even if you do not experience sex discrimination directly. Schools must take immediate steps to address any sex discrimination, sexual harassment, or sexual violence on campus to prevent it from affecting students further. If a school knows or reasonably should know about discrimination, harassment or violence that is creating a “hostile environment” for any student, it must act to eliminate it, to remedy the harm caused and to prevent its recurrence. Schools may not discourage survivors from continuing their education, such as telling them to “take time off” or forcing them to quit a team, club or class. You have the right to remain on campus and have every educational program and opportunity available to you.
Colleges must have an established procedure for handling complaints of sex discrimination, sexual harassment, or sexual violence. Every school must have a Title IX Coordinator who manages complaints. The coordinator’s contact information should be publicly accessible on the school’s website. If you decide to file a complaint, your school must promptly investigate it regardless of whether you report to the police (though a police investigation may very briefly delay the school’s investigation if law enforcement is gathering evidence).
Colleges must take immediate action to ensure a victim can continue their education free of ongoing sex discrimination, sexual harassment or sexual violence. Along with issuing a no contact directive to the accused, a school must ensure that any reasonable changes to your housing, class or sports schedule, campus job, or extracurricular activity and clubs are made to ensure you can continue your education free from ongoing sex discrimination, sexual harassment or sexual violence. These arrangements can occur BEFORE a formal complaint, investigation, hearing, or final decision is made regarding your complaint. It also can CONTINUE after the entire process since you have a right to an education free of sex-based discrimination, harassment or violence. Additionally, these accommodations should not over-burden complainant-victims or limit your educational opportunities; instead, schools can require the accused to likewise change some school activities or classes to ensure there is not ongoing hostile educational environment.
Colleges may not retaliate against someone filing a complaint and must keep a victim safe from other retaliatory harassment or behavior. Schools must address complaints of sex discrimination, sexual harassment, and sexual violence. As part of this obligation they can issue a no contact directive or make other accommodations to ensure the accused or a third party does not retaliate for any complaint. Additionally, the school may not take adverse action against the complainant-victim for their complaint. Any retaliation can and should be reported in a formal Title IX complaint to the U.S. Department of Education since it is your right to be free from a hostile educational environment.
Colleges can issue a no contact directive under Title IX to prevent the accused student from approaching or interacting with the victim. When necessary for student safety, schools can issue a no contact directive preventing an accused student from directly or indirectly contacting or interacting with you. Campus security or police can and should enforce such directives. This is not a court-issued restraining order, but a school should provide you with information on how to obtain such an order and facilitate that process if you choose to pursue it.
How to File a Discrimination Complaint with the Office for Civil Rights
How to File a Complaint Online: You may file a complaint with OCR using OCR’s electronic complaint form at the following website there is also information to mail: http://www.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/complaintintro.html
