Response to survivors’ messages on bridge

Dear Members of the Bishop’s Community,

I have listened to the strong reaction to recent public declarations about survivors of acts of sexual violence in our community. I understand and share the anger against sexual violence in all forms, within our campus community or anywhere in a just society.

As an institution, we work to educate and prevent these terrible acts and to promote a culture in which we all believe and stand with survivors. We have processes for survivors of sexual violence to report these illegal acts in a safe environment designed to protect survivors’ privacy that we are constantly working to improve. We seek to do everything in our power to help ensure we offer the right support resources to all survivors of sexual aggression. That is why we are taking an additional step in launching an independent external investigation into last week’s declarations.

This investigation’s priority will be supporting the survivor’s quest for justice. A specialized investigator will be named shortly, and we will share ways of reaching out and communicating with the investigator.

We encourage the survivors who wrote the messages on the bridge to contact the investigator and provide all relevant facts and information to help them get justice they want and deserve.

I know there are many angry voices out there and I look forward to the opportunity to answer your questions in the Town Hall tomorrow at 3:00 PM. I have moved the Town Hall to The Gait to accommodate larger participation. You can also participate online using this link.

As you know, we offer mandatory consent and bystander training for all incoming students as well as offer annual mandatory training for all faculty and staff. The online training It Takes All of Us is available for all in Moodle. Security is present 24/7 and trained in responding to sexual violence on campus. We also work closely with our local police to help keep our community safe. On big events nights, the student service team and the peer supporters offer safety tents on and off campus as a safe place to reach out immediately if something were to happen. We have much more work to do to eliminate sexual violence and rape culture in our community and I look forward to hearing ideas and proposals.

We will keep you updated with other projects in progress as they materialize,

It takes all of us to combat sexual violence,

Sincerely,

Stine Lindén-Andersen
Dean of Student Affairs