(Posted July 20, 2017)

Students have been instrumental in enhancing prevention at Juniata, like senior Ellie Hainsworth, who leads healthy relationship programming in the Safe Place to Talk (SPoT), junior Amy Chen, who is establishing Juniata's affiliate of It's On Us; and senior Dallas Ricker, who founded the Juniata Men's Group.
Students have been instrumental in enhancing prevention at Juniata, like senior Ellie Hainsworth, who leads healthy relationship programming in the Safe Place to Talk (SPoT), junior Amy Chen, who is establishing Juniata's affiliate of It's On Us; and senior Dallas Ricker, who founded the Juniata Men's Group.

Boston, Mass. – Juniata College was honored at the ninth annual Campus Prevention Network (CPN) Summit presented by EVERFI, Inc. Presented at the Park Plaza in Boston, the award recognizes Juniata for their commitment to upholding the highest standards in preventing sexual assault, domestic violence and stalking.

“We appreciate the recognition inherent in the EVERFI award and are proud of the measures we take as a College to combat interpersonal violence,” said Juniata College President James A. Troha. “What makes Juniata’s approach unique and successful is the empowerment of people to use their voice and actions to create substantial changes. From students like senior Ellie Hainsworth, who leads healthy relationship programming in the Safe Place to Talk (SPoT) and junior Amy Chen, who is establishing Juniata’s affiliate of It’s On Us to senior Dallas Ricker, who founded the Juniata Men’s Group, many interested individuals across campus have engaged in prevention efforts."  

Colleges and universities that have joined the CPN were eligible for consideration to receive the award through completing either the Sexual Assault Diagnostic Inventory (SADI) or the Alcohol Diagnostic Inventory (ADI)—comprehensive research-based assessments of a school’s prevention programs and practices grounded in a decade of peer-reviewed literature on best practices in prevention. Awardees were selected based on their SADI and ADI scores, CPN staff interviews with campus professionals, and a careful review of each institution’s effort.

“With so much recent emphasis on the shortcomings in campus prevention and response efforts, EVERFI aims to shift the narrative by highlighting campuses doing exemplary work,” said Rob Buelow, EVERFI Vice President of Prevention Education. “The Prevention Excellence Awards give us the opportunity to share and celebrate the tremendous commitment these institutions are making and continue to make in comprehensive, data-driven, evidence-based, and researched-informed prevention efforts to build communities that encourage students to thrive.”

Juniata seeks to create a safe, respectful, and healthy campus for all students. The College’s Title IX staff are all professionally trained by nationally recognized Title IX experts like the Association for Title IX Administrators, the National Center for Higher Education Risk Management, and Magna Publications. Juniata also utilizes EVERFI’s HAVEN, an online training course on understanding sexual assault, to train students, faculty and staff.

"One of the truly unique characteristics of Juniata is that the entire community is participating in learning violence prevention strategies and healthy relationship building tactics, from administrators to students, faculty and staff." --Jody Kosack Althouse, Director of the Office for the Prevention of Interpersonal Violence

“Juniata College is committed to creating an enhanced culture of engaged bystander intervention, while providing confidential, competent, and comprehensive services to survivors of dating and domestic violence, sexual assault and stalking”, says Jody Kosack Althouse, Director of the Office for the Prevention of Interpersonal Violence. “One of the truly unique characteristics of Juniata is that the entire community is participating in learning violence prevention strategies and healthy relationship building tactics, from administrators to students, faculty and staff.”

The nationally recognized bystander intervention program “Green Dot” will be fully implemented on Juniata’s campus during fall 2017. It continues grassroots efforts started by Juniata faculty, staff and students who collaborated to create the group Juniata College Students and Faculty Ending Rape (JCSAFER) in 2012. That group has now evolved into the Juniata “It’s On Us” campaign and the Juniata Men’s Group, which was founded in 2016–both of which are actively engaged in raising awareness and serving as a platform for dialogue and action to strengthen a culture of consent on campus. 

Of the 89 colleges and universities that have completed the SADI and the 85 that have completed the ADI, fewer than 10 percent earned the distinction of being a Prevention Excellence Award honoree. Other colleges and universities honored include American University, Dartmouth College, Vanderbilt University, and the University at Buffalo (SUNY-Buffalo). As Buelow further noted, “The Prevention Excellence Awards are particularly special because we don’t ask schools to compete against each other, but rather to commit to doing the best work possible in the core areas of institutionalization, critical processes and policies, and programming, and to measure themselves against the highest standards in the field.”

The Campus Prevention Network, is a nationwide initiative of over 1,700 institutions dedicated to creating safer, healthier campus communities. Any college or university may join CPN free of charge by agreeing to take a pledge to adopt the highest standards of prevention related to critical health and safety challenges, including sexual assault and alcohol abuse, and to assess the progress and impact of their efforts. Through the Campus Prevention Network, colleges and universities will have access to prevention best practices, regulatory compliance expertise, ongoing professional development and groundbreaking prevention research.

EVERFI, Inc. is the education technology innovator that empowers K-12, higher education, and adult learners with the skills needed to be successful in life. The company teams with major corporations and foundations to provide the programs at no cost to K-12 schools. Some of America’s leading CEOs and venture capital firms are EVERFI investors including Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos, Twitter founder Evan Williams, and Google Chairman Eric Schmidt.  

Contact April Feagley at feaglea@juniata.edu or (814) 641-3131 for more information.