CAL STATE NORTHRIDGE : Rape Education Seminars Ordered

For the first time, Cal State Northridge housing officials have ordered that rape education be made available to students living on campus.

The new effort will require 45 resident advisers to provide rape education programs to 1,700 students who live in the university’s four housing complexes. Attendance is not mandatory, but officials said the advisers will strongly encourage students to participate.

“Certainly, it’s a paramount issue for us,” said Cindy Derrico. assistant director for residential life at CSUN. The advisers, she said, “are going to use more than normal incentive for students to attend.”

Derrico said the decision to mandate rape education did not stem from a dramatic rise in the incidence of rape among university housing residents. Instead, she said, housing officials are responding to a request from the state to deal with the issue of sexual assault on campus.

Housing officials will push to educate female freshmen about rape during the first six weeks of school, Derrico said, a time when, experts say, women may let their guard down in the excitement of becoming a college student.

“There is a very, very high risk of date rape,” for freshmen women during their first weeks living on campus, said Campus Police Sgt. Jay McTaggart. At CSUN, as many as 85% of on-campus housing students are freshmen, he said.

Although campus-related rape is not limited to residence halls, the four assaults reported to police so far this year involved students who live on campus, McTaggart said.

McTaggart has given many rape education talks to residence hall students, including one last week. Another seminar on date rape will be held Oct. 9 at Heather Hall and will feature a speaker from the Santa Monica Rape Crisis Treatment Center.

Students living on campus praised the effort, but differed on how effective it would be.

“I think that those who really care about their safety and well-being will attend,” said Michelle Barr, 19, a sophomore. “I have a friend who was raped. That’s why I’d attend. It kind of hit home.”

Ted Devitt Jr., 20, a transfer student from Colorado State University, said getting women to attend the seminars is not the problem. “We had them my freshmen year . . . but no one ever went,” he said. “More women than men will attend. But . . . it’s men that need to be educated.”