For safety of all, BIT must be mandatory

In the fall of 2013, the University instituted an interactive, student-facilitated program called Bystander Intervention Training (BIT) designed to teach students, staff and faculty about sexual assault, abusive relationships and rape culture and to give them tools to prevent gender violence on campus. The general consensus on campus is that BIT is a well-put together program and that it is extremely informative, and the Editorial Board agrees with the immense value that this program holds.

At the moment, there are requirements for athletic teams, sororities and IFC fraternities to complete BIT; however, we believe that BIT should be made mandatory for all students. We believe that, as members of the Hopkins community, the student body has the responsibility to hold each other accountable for all of our actions and to have the knowledge of when and how to intervene when necessary. This training cannot be voluntary to students. The students who would sign up for voluntary training would likely be those who are already familiar with the issues, and those who are not even aware of the basic concepts approached in the trainings would not be reached. In order to make this campus safe for everyone, BIT needs to be mandated.

As such, we strongly believe that BIT should be made part of the new student orientation program. Current freshmen receive sexual assault awareness education in the form of Sex Signals, a skit-based program that relies heavily on humor.  While Sex Signals may be entertaining for some in the audience, the light-hearted approach at times makes a mockery out of the gravity of sexual violence. In contrast, the Bystander Intervention Training utilizes a much more serious and pragmatic approach to education, while its interactive components ensure that the participants remain engaged.

However, the Editorial Board also thinks that all current students, regardless of year, should participate in the program as soon as logistically possible.  We suggest that frequent training sessions be held in the spring semester and that students must attend a session in order that a one-day ISIS hold on fall semester class registration be lifted.  Some students might view the five-hour mandatory training as an annoyance, but we believe that BIT is worth everyone’s time.  We understand that most students already lead a busy life; it is our hope, however, that by putting a registration hold in place until BIT has been completed, students would have more incentive to make time in their already packed schedules.

We recognize the logistical concerns there might be if we were to push through a mandatory training for all Homewood students.  However, limiting factors can be easily overcome. For example, the University could hold weekly sessions in the next semester so that all undergraduate students would have an opportunity to participate in this wholly necessary program.

While BIT is already a great program, the Editorial Board does have several suggestions.

First, to improve the strength of the program, we suggest that the University bring in professionals to conduct part of the training.  We praise the effort student facilitators have made in the previous training sessions, and we think that the interactive components of the program should remain student-led.  However, having the informative components taught by professionals will be more effective, and if trainers from outside the University need to be hired on an interim basis, or if new full- or part-time staff needs to be added to CHEW to make this feasible, we believe that this is a justifiable expense that the University should budget for.

Second, the Editorial Board proposes the inclusion of an ongoing component to BIT.  We would like to see follow-up programs after the initial training, including but not limited to guest speakers speaking on sexual assault awareness and more in-depth training on bystander intervention. Unlike the initial training, however, we think that the ongoing component should be voluntary.  The Editorial Board believes that the initial training would serve to generate a necessary baseline of campus awareness on matters of sexual violence, and the ongoing component would serve to deepen participating students’ understanding and improve their capacity for action in the case of a real incident.

Overall, the Editorial Board thinks that Bystander Intervention Training is a successful program with tremendous potential.  We lend our full support to any future initiatives of the program and we look forward to seeing its expansion.