In Wake of Survey, College Appoints New Title IX Coordinator

Amid heightened scrutiny about how Harvard prevents and addresses sexual assault, the University’s Title IX office has appointed a new College Title IX coordinator and published a College-specific website on the topic.

In an email to undergraduates Tuesday, the College’s full-time Title IX coordinator, Emily J. Miller, wrote that Jeffrey Berg had recently taken on a role as a College Title IX coordinator. Berg, who also is as an assistant director in the Office of Undergraduate Research and Fellowships, will perform both duties this year, Miller wrote in the email.

The emailed announcement came one day after the University released data from its sexual conduct climate survey administered last spring. As a whole, the data revealed an unsettling picture at the College for many students and administrators.

Slightly more than 29 percent of surveyed Harvard senior women—a category which includes some students in the Division of Continuing Education—reported that they had experienced nonconsensual penetration and sexual touching since coming to college. The rate was 27.2 across all 27 schools that participated in the Association of American Universities survey. When Harvard DCE students were removed, the prevalence rate of nonconsensual penetration and sexual touching rose from 29.2 percent to 31.2 percent of Harvard respondents, according to a report from former Harvard Provost Steven E. Hyman. By Katherine R.W. Hebb

Thirty-one percent of senior female undergraduates at the College surveyed reported having experienced some kind of sexual misconduct—what the survey termed “nonconsensual sexual contact”—during their time at Harvard, and many conveyed distrust and confusion with the University’s procedures for handling cases.

Both Miller and Berg are tasked with providing information to students about the Faculty of Arts and Sciences’ Title IX policy and procedures, in addition to helping provide accommodations to victims of sexual harassment, according to a new website the College launched. The website focuses chiefly on Title IX at the College and is designed to provide more information to undergraduates, Miller wrote in her email.

The new website and appointment represent more administrative changes for a College that has been the target of intensified scrutiny as it faces a federal probe into its Title IX compliance and student activists critical of its current practices.

In her email, Miller, much like other administrators, deemed the survey results “deeply unsettling” and reiterated her office’s commitment to addressing the issue.

On Monday—the day the survey results went public—University Drew G. Faust hosted a town hall to address the prevalence of sexual assault on campus, and the College subsequently hosted the first pair of several other town hall events geared specifically toward undergraduates on Tuesday night.

—Staff writer Noah J. Delwiche can be reached at noah.delwiche@thecrimson.com. Follow him on Twitter @ndelwiche.