Coalition Meets With Administrators

The Coalition Against Sexual Violence (CASV) had the willing ears of administrators yesterday, as they discussed their concerns in their first official meeting with members of the Harvard College Dean's office this year.

CASV members said the time was right for an official meeting to start discussions with administrators that they hope will continue throughout the year.

"We're more focused this year," said Kaitlin McGaw '00, the coalition's co-chair. "There's more energy from new students."

Administrators were equally enthusiastic about the discussion.

"This kind of meeting is always a good chance to open up discussion between students and administrators," said Assistant Dean of the College Karen E. Avery '87.

One of the major topics tackled was the safe community meetings first-years are required to attend. The meetings, which involve about 500 students in a Science Center auditorium, include presentations about rape.

"Being in a huge auditorium is not necessarily a safe environment to talk about rape," McGaw said.

"We were thinking of something similar to the diversity discussions," co-chair Alexis B. Karteron '01 said, referring to the more intimate meetings every proctor group has with a faculty member to talk about issues of diversity and tolerance.

Avery said the safe community meetings are still "a work in progress."

"There are still things that we need to tweak and change," she said.

Along with issues like the need for a women's center and improving SASH (sexual assault and sexual harassment) advising for first-years, the students and deans also addressed the new Ann Radcliffe trust.

Avery will be the director of the trust, which will which will fund CASV and other student groups beginning next year.

CASV members said they were told

there will be an advisory committee of students, faculty and administrators to help distribute grants to groups. However, the organization of the committee is still unclear.

"We're a little concerned about what the process is going to be to pick students to be on the committee," Karteron said.

The meeting also served as an introduction to the coalition for Associate Dean of the College David P. Illingworth '71. Karteron and McGaw said they were impressed by his willingness to listen to the group's concerns.

"I felt like he had a really unbiased outlook and was just trying to understand where we're coming from," Karteron said.

Avery said the new associate dean handled the situation well.

"I think he learned a lot, certainly," she said.

The Coalition members also presented the deans with petitions circulated at last year's "Rally for Justice" and letters written by students' parents supporting the Coalition's demands. Avery said she will forward the material to Dean of the College Harry R. Lewis '68.

"I think he'll be very interested in what they have to say," she said.

McGaw said she hopes the petitions and letters along with follow-up meetings will help CASV get a steadier footing in dealing with the administration.

"One of the goals [of the meeting] was to say we don't want to be marginalized as a group," McGaw said. "We're not just a group of radical feminists."