Rodney Davis encourages discussion at Campus Safety Summit
U.S. Representative Rodney Davis (R-Ill) meets with student leaders and university officials to talk about issues including sexual assault and safety at the Illini Union on Tuesday, April 5th, 2016.
April 5, 2016
Congressman Rodney Davis agspoke to students and faculty about sexual assault safety measures at the Illini Union Tuesday.
Coinciding with Sexual Assault Awareness month, Davis spoke around the state Monday and Tuesday at the Campus Safety Summits for Southern Illinois University and Illinois State University.ag
The summits were an opportunity for university officials and student leaders to come together and engage in productive conversations about sexual assault and general campus safety improvements.ag
Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs, Renee Romano,ag helped to organize the summit at the University.
“I’m just thrilled, I’m proud of everyone, and I have a list of new (safety) ideas,” Romano said. “I was thinking that this has been like a focus group, for us to share ideas.”
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Davis asked if students are informed about what resources are available on campus to deal with sexual assault.
Representatives of the Illinois Student Senate and Greek life were present, including Bailey Burns,ag Vice President for Programming of the Panhellenic Council.ag
“I feel like a huge issue is being able to go to a confidential resource and hear your options,” Burns said. “The average age of a sexual assault survivor is 18 ½. That’s someone’s freshman year; they’re living in the dorms. You should be able to go to your RA and express what happened to you, without all of a sudden having to go through a police investigation.”
The summit press release cites that “Davis has been a leader in addressing sexual assault issues on college campuses by participating in the “It’s On Us” campaign with Vice President Joe Biden.”AG
Davis works on legislation which aims at empowering students, strengthening accountability and transparency and establishing stiff penalties for non-compliance with the legislation’s standards for training, data and best practices.ag
“We’re always working to try and find innovative ways to address these problems,” Davis said. “If you have any ideas bring them forward on how that ought to work. I’m interested in hearing the perspective of what’s going on here at Univeristy of Illinois.”
