Greek leaders implement sexual violence education at Mizzou sororities
After proposed rules for University of Missouri fraternities cause an uproar on social media, now Greek leaders are working to educated women about sexual violence.
The MU Panhellenic Association implemented a new education plan for the upcoming school year.
Until now, educating members on sexual violence has been up to each individual sorority on the Mizzou campus with no guidelines from Panhellenic. Mizzou sophomore and Delta Delta Delta member Erin Peters said although her sorority has discussions on the topic, she would not know what to do if she were a victim.
“Definitely not,” Peters said.” No. Even having that meeting, I wouldn’t even know where to begin or to start.”
Now, each sorority will be required to host a training session with all new members.
“Newer members come to college without a really good understanding of what sexual violence really means,” PHA Vice President of Risk Management Kendall Foley said. “And so that’s why we’re trying to provide more education right when those newer members get to college.”
A group of new members from each sorority will learn about prevention and reporting in a training session. And chapter leaders will go to a yearly summit on how to handle different scenarios.
“A lot of times what happens is leaders in a chapter are faced with a situation where members come to them and they say, ‘this has happened to me, what do I do’ because they’re leaders, they’re supposed to know what to do,” Foley said. “But really, they haven’t been trained on that. And that’s really overwhelming and scary for them. Plus they’re not able to provide the support that they need for that member who is coming to them.”
Panhellenic will give leaders resource manuals. Plus, all sororities will be required to provide a sexual violence education program at least once a year with PHA, the Title IX office and the Relationship and Sexual Violence Prevention Center.
“We don’t need the same education as fraternity members,” MU Chi Omegea member Maddie Stanze said. “And I think it’s a good idea for the Mizzou campus as a whole to have the education, not just the Greek community.”
