Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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Richland County team to attend conference on sexual assault By Z’ANNE COVELL THEGAMECOCK Eight members of Richland County’s Sexual Assault Response Team will represent Columbia at the “Making a Difference” conference this week in San Diego. The conference will address the lack of accountability for sex offenders across the country. The team will include representatives from USC’s Office for Sexual Health and Violence Prevention and USC Police. The conference, sponsored by End Violence Against Women International, plans to teach representatives how to ensure the legal system holds sex offenders accountable for their actions. “The purpose of this conference is to challenge the legal system and to make the system better at responding to sexual assault cases,” said Kim Lonsway, director of research for EVAW. “What is .really radical about the conference is that it is bringing people from different disciplines together and also people from different communities together.” Eight communities from across the United States will attend the conference, and representatives from each community must include members from distinct disciplines such as law enforcement, sexual assault services and prosecution. Juliette Muellner is the program director for USC’s Office for Sexual Health and Violence Prevention. Muellner, who will be attending the convention, said 88 communities from across the country applied, but only eight were selected to be part of the conference. Muellner said she believes Columbia was chosen because of the already functioning SART team, which has been working to bring several area agencies together to respond to sexual assault cases since 1999. Carol Wyatt, executive director for Sexual Trauma Services of the Midlands, said she thinks that Richland County’s SART was selected because of its collaboration between Columbia and the university. “All agencies can be involved with helping student-victims, and this collaboration gives the best response to students,” said Wyatt, who will be traveling to San Diego. Muellner said the issue of holding sex offenders accountable is crucial because less than two percent of offenders receive a prison sentence even though their identity is known at least 90 percent of the time. Muellner said in order to prosecute offenders, a greater percentage of victims must feel safe to come forward and tell their stories, because only 16 percent of victims even report sexual assault. Muellner said she partially blames society’s lack of understanding for the low percentage of reported cases. “Due to a lack of education, many people do ijot even identify what happens to them as assault because they don’t even know what constitutes it,” Muellner said. “It’s a societal problem because sex is taboo, and sex in a violent way is even more taboo.” Even when victims report sexual assault, offenders often go unpunished because of insufficient evidence. “Even though 95 percent of sexual offenders are people that victims know, there are no witnesses because it usually occurs in private places,” Muellner said. “Prosecutors often believe it happened, but they say they don’t have enough evidence for the jury to make a decision because it’s a ‘he said, she said’ case.” Muellner said the conference will involve intensive training, which will teach representatives new ways to work with victims as well as new investigation techniques so that when more victims come forward, their cases will be proven and their assaulters will be sentenced. “We will be learning from nationwide and even worldwide experts, and they will give us assistance in applying the knowledge in Columbia, ‘flowing us what we can do better in our area,” said Erin Gaddy, assistant solicitor for the Richland County Fifth Circuit Solicitors Office. Gaddy said the training will continue after the conference ends, and evaluations will be conducted to ensure that progress is being made. The Sexual Assault Response Team provided preliminary statistical data concerning the prosecution of sex offenders, and they agreed to collect data at future points to show if improvement occurs. “This is not just a feel good thing,” Gaddy said. “We are doing objective tests to actually make sure we are improving.” Muellner said it is important that Columbia was chosen to participate in the conference because Richland County has one of the highest sexual assault rates in the state. “After the training, we can be the lead community for the rest of the state by setting an example for others to follow,” Muellner said. Comments on this story ? E-?nail gamecockneu's@gwm.sc. edu ■ SUPPORT Continued from page 1 Young Democrats. “They’ve been really helpful in terms of spreading the word,” Kovacevich said. Besides Obama and Clyburn, Columbia Mayor Bob Coble and Don Fowler, former ’ chairman of the Democratic National Committee, attended the rally, which Obama used to draw parallels between his campaign and Tenenbaum’s. “I was the underdog, the same way that Inez, when she announced for this race, was considered the underdog,” Obama said. “Once I get to Washington, I’ll want to partner up with somebody like Inez Tenenbaum.” And in her opening remarks, Tenebaum made a light-hearted effort to identify with Obama. “The first time I ever read an article about Barack Obama, it said, ‘My last name rhymes with “yo mama,’”” she said. “And I thought, well today, just for today, I’ll change my name to Inez Tenenbauma.” Day said there’s still a chance Tenenbaum might make a last-second campaign stop at USC in the next week. But even if she doesn’t come, Day added, most students know enough about the race to make a choice. “I think people still will know where she stands on the issues,” she said. Comments on this story ? E-muil ga7nec0cknews@gwm.sc. edu ■ BOARD Continued from page 1 since last measured. McKinney said the reason the statistic was lagging was because USC does not include donations given to athletics. “All other schools count those contributions and we have not,” Adams said. “When we include donations to the Gamecock club, it will hopefully make up the difference.” Adams also said that despite this technique, the Alumni Association is expecting the percentage to increase back to 24 percent. The next Board of Trustees meeting is scheduled for Dec. 13 at 10:30 p.m. Comments on this story? E-mail gamecocknervs@gwm.se. edu ■ MERGER Continued from page 1 said the period of integration now underway will show signs of research activity. “I just think there’s too much work to do and too much that needs approval to get a full merger before then,” he said. Pastides told the trustees that having the two schools compete as a single unit for grant money from the National Institutes of Health and other venerable sources would propel the merged school into the nation’s elite in research capabilities. The two universities combined take in about $325 million in external research funding and, acting as a single unit, would be ranked near the top 50 universities in the nation in that statistic and surpass private institutions like Emory University and the University of Chicago. Outgoing board chairman Mack Whittle said many of the top universities receive a significant portion of their research funding through their medical and graduate schools and that MUSC, which has no undergraduate school, could better serve the state’s undergraduate schools through garnering nationally competitive research money. “We have been competing on an unfair playing field, and this plan would in essence help level that playing field,” Whittle said. Pastides has also proposed that faculty and administrators from both universities join to create a conflict resolution panel to address concerns from students as they arise over the next few years. Comments on this story? E-mail gamecocknews@gwm.sc. edu Need Help? If work, family or other challenges have stalled '; ^s your research, here's how we can help: • Clarifying the method section • Assisting with survey design • Selecting appropriate statistics • Entering and analyzing data • Creating APA tables and figures M 9~ • Reporting the result^ • Explaining the l| statistical output Why risk delaying your graduation pla • statistics • . ..u: ■ r, Ik jM I ki ■