Raise awareness about sexual violence and “Take Back the Night” April 6

As part of Sexual Assault Awareness Month, students, faculty and staff from Rowan University will meet online, speak up and walk about in a show of strength against sexual violence.

The University’s annual Take Back the Night program, which this year will be held virtually and in-person April 6 with a traditional walk through part of campus, will send a clear message: sexual violence of any form is never OK, and it’s never tolerated at Rowan.

Beginning at 6 p.m., the program will feature a virtual Zoom segment with groups and organizations across campus as well as dedicated online breakout rooms in which students who want to speak with a counselor may do so confidentially.

“In the past we’ve held it in the Student Center Pit but we can’t do that now,” said Allie Pearce, assistant director of Rowan’s Healthy Campus Initiatives (HCI) program.

As in years past, students will have an opportunity to take part in an open mic-style event, this year via the Zoom portal.

HCI Graduate Coordinator Allison Niemiec said all public health protocols will be followed during the in-person walk portion of the event but the indoor segment will be held online.

She said last year’s program, Rowan’s 10^th annual, was quickly moved to Instagram following the University’s closure of in-person programming in March, and the format worked well.

“Despite having to move online quickly, we kept some of the same components,” Niemiec said. “Some students submitted videos about why they care about sexual violence prevention.”

Pearce said the walk portion of the event, typically a cross-campus vigil that embodies the spirit of the international Take Back the Night program, had to be shortened for 2021.

“By necessity the in-person walk will be smaller but we hope that in 2022 we’ll all be back on campus and the walk will again be a more prominent part of the program,” she said.

According to the National Sexual Violence Resource Center, one in five women and one in 71 men will be raped during their lifetime. The rate of violence is higher against members of the LGBTQIA community in which roughly 46 percent of lesbians, 75 percent of bisexual women, 40 percent of gay men and more than 47 percent of bisexual men report being victims.

Pearce said sexual violence against members of the Black and brown communities can also be disproportionately higher than in the general population.

Importantly, she said, Rowan’s program is not just aimed at preventing victims.

“We want to make it clear that it’s also, and always has been, about not being a perpetrator,” she said. “It’s about making sure you have consent. Checking in with people, having good conversations about healthy relationships, sex and sexuality, is all sexual violence prevention.”

To take part in Rowan’s 2021 Take Back the Night Program, please register today!