Grand Valley State University’s Women’s Center has received a $265,129 federal grant from the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office on Violence Against Women, to raise awareness of sexual assault and dating violence and to help reduce the number of these incidents on campus.

Marlene Kowalski-Braun, director of the Women’s Center, said the grant will help the Women’s Center to further transform the campus culture regarding prevention of dating violence, domestic violence, sexual assault and stalking.

She said the results from the ALERT Labs annual anonymous random sample done in 2006 on GVSU’s campus revealed that one in five female students and one in 15 male students have experienced sexual assault and some point in their lifetimes – numbers that reflect the statistics nationwide.

“With current policies in place and work that supports prevention and reporting, we feel that this grant will assist in building capacities to further the universities work,” Kowalski-Braun said. “Most importantly, we received the grant because of current efforts around education prevention and campus/community outreach initiatives.”

With the funding, the Women’s Center plans to create a coordinated community response team made up of faculty and staff at GVSU and community leaders in the area. Specialized training and additional resources for campus police officers, judicial hearing officers and counseling staff are all major focuses of the grant, Kowalski-Braun said.

“Additionally, we are able to create a Theater for Dialogue student-lead performance education group, and we have a plan to create sustained involvement of male students as Allies in violence prevention,” she added.

The grant also allows for numerous on and off-campus partners that include non-profits such as the YWCA, the Center for Women in Transition, and area law enforcement.

Kowalski-Braun added the Women’s Center will use specialized training from nationally recognized speakers for the theater program and police training in addition to local experts for the training and counseling center staff.

“This three-year grant will help us develop sustainable programs and services for our campus and local communities,” she said. “We recognize that GVSU provides great programs and services for students, yet more work can always be done to address issues around sexual violence, and these funds will help us build those capacities. We feel very lucky to be one of only 23 recipients this year.”

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