With the planning team and keynote speakers for the Title IX and Clery Symposium in October 2014
Another Bakersfield College Learn@BC! event was the Title IX and Clery Act Symposium in mid-October.
Chief Chris Counts and Amber Chiang started the event with a presentation on the Clery Act, particularly when it comes to crime reporting, and the college’s emergency notification process. They also discussed the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), which boosted the reporting requirements for crimes of a certain nature on college campuses. New regulations under VAWA require:
- Tracking of incidents of sexual and relationship violence
- Well defined approaches to prevention of incidents of this nature
- Structured educational programming that raises the awareness within the college community.
Amber Chiang and Chris Counts
Counts and Chiang emphasized a few key points:
- The college sends out Timely Warnings when an ongoing threat is present, or in relation to crimes of a certain nature. In the hope of protecting students and employees, Timely Warnings can be sent without good information, or before all victim/witness interviews have taken place.
- Emergency notifications, evacuations, and drills are to be taken seriously and all students and non-essential personnel must abide the emergency orders.
- If you see something, say something.
Chiang and Counts were followed up by two guests from the Office of Civil Rights: attorney Michael Chang and law investigator Ava DeAlmeida, who discussed Title IX in depth for our audience. They detailed sexual harassment for the crowd, explaining the differences so that attendees could better understand how “yes means yes” is treated on a college campus. Chang and DeAlmeida went on to discuss the college’s role in preventing future sexual harassment, and the efforts the college can make to keep students safe when they are on campus.
You can find the two presentations, photos, the video of the symposium and more on the Learn@BC website. If you weren’t able to join us, I encourage you to go view the materials so that you too will have a better understanding of these two laws and how they impact Bakersfield College.