Awareness is goal of week

Joyce Bunger doesn’t consider intimate violence a “women’s issue.”

“Sexual assault isn’t a women’s issue, it’s not a man’s issue, it’s a people issue,” said Bunger, one of the event organizers for Creighton University’s 16th annual “Stop Intimate Violence Week.”

“Then we also need some people to get their heads out of the clouds and realize it happens right here, it’s happening all over, and it’s happening to younger and younger people,” Bunger said.

Creighton is sponsoring a week-long series of student-focused talks, presentations and other activities on campus to raise awareness of intimate violence, a problem estimated to affect more than a million people each year.

The featured speaker is Mark C. Dawson, a leading authority on issues of leadership, safe dating, date rape, healthy non-violent relationships and sexual assault awareness.

The “Stop Intimate Violence Week,” has been an awareness-building event for 16 years on Creighton’s campus, said Bunger, an assistant dean in the school of nursing.

“It started out very small,” Bunger said. “The first year we did it, we did it more as a domestic violence type of program.

“And as the years progressed, we went, ‘No, this really isn’t domestic violence. This isn’t a man coming home and beating up his wife, or a woman beating up her kid.’ What’s happening on college campuses is more intimate violence. It’s the date rape, it’s going to parties and going too far.

“We made it very personal to a college campus,” she said.

Planned events for the week include:

* Tuesday

11 a.m. to 1 p.m., portico lobby of the Harper Center: “These Hands are Not for Hitting,” an interactive-table where Creighton community members vow, through a show of their printed hand prints, that they will do what they can to stop intimate violence.

* Wednesday

11 a.m. to 1p.m., Brandeis Dining Hall: “These Hands are Not for Hitting”

Noon to 1 p.m.: Walking billboards -- Students, faculty and staff walk the campus wearing T-shirts reminding passers-by to stop intimate violence.

7 p.m., Harper Center, Hixson-Lied Auditorium: Mark C. Dawson, national speaker.

8 p.m., Harper Center main entrance: “Take Back the Night,” candlelight vigil to the steps of St. John’s Church.

* Thursday

11 a.m. to 1 p.m., Skutt Student Center/Skinner Mall: “These Hands are Not for Hitting “

7 p.m., Harper Center Hixson-Lied Auditorium: “The Color Purple.”

* Friday

11 a.m. to 1 p.m., Skutt Student Center lawn: Self defense class.

« Community

Share