Raising sexual assault awareness around campus is important to June Paye and Melissa Bullard.
Payne, a senior staff psychologist and associate director of Clinical Services in the Counseling Center, is leading the Sexual Assault Prevention Outreach Team at Ball State with Bullard, the doctoral intern for coordinating activities.
A team of eight has been working since October to raise awareness about sexual assault.
"We want students to understand that rape is common," Bullard said. "Rape does happen, and it might happen to you."
Bullard said the key to sexual assault awareness is to focus on prevention.
"We don't want you to be a survivor. We want you to protect yourself," Bullard said. "People can prevent sexual assault from occurring. It's not just awareness. We want to prevent it from happening."
To accomplish this, activities have been scheduled from Monday through Friday. The week includes a training session on helping men prevent sexual assault, the showing of the movie "The Accused," and presentations on legal, personal and medical aspects of sexual assault.
"We attended a state conference on what activities to include in the week as well," Payne said. "We're very active in doing programming at residence halls, classes, fraternities and sororities to bring about awareness of assault for our students."
Bullard said the team is encouraging students to get involved. A residence hall challenge has been put in place to encourage students to attend as many events as possible. The residence hall to go to the most events will receive a pizza party.
The team is also concerned with increasing the understanding of what defines sexual assault.
Payne said unless the person says "yes" to having sex, this act is non-consensual.
"They may not have verbally said 'no,' but they didn't give consent," Payne said.
Sexual assault is called a "crime of silence," and Payne reported that one assault happens every six minutes in the United States. But women tend not to report it.
"We live in a society where we blame the victim," Payne said. "We need to encourage people to report these things when they happen."
Gene Burton, director of public safety, said from Aug. 15 to the present, there have been four sexual batteries, two reported rapes, and one attempted rape on campus.
Diana Jones, the women's health nurse practitioner, said an increase in the number of people sexually assaulted occurs in the summer, during holidays, and during pledge weeks with the fraternities and sororities.
Even though women are the victims of rape 90 percent of the time, men can be victimized as well.
"One out of twelve men is raped, and it's one out of four with women," Payne said. "We want to be sensitive to both men and women."
University Police and the Health Center take certain steps for people that have been sexually assaulted.
"(Those assaulted) speak to an officer," Burton said. "Because their physical well-being is most important, if they need a doctor or want to speak to a counselor, they can do that. After their physical welfare and emotional needs are taken care of, we assign an officer to investigate the case."
Jones said the Health Center needs to know right away if the person wishes to report it or not.
"If they do, we send them to the emergency room," Jones said. "If not, we still check for STDs, and make sure there are no tears or rips."
Victims are then encouraged to file a police report and seek counseling at Lucina Hall, Jones said.
"They may think they're OK, and that excess baggage comes out to haunt them later," she said.
Jones said she does not want students to leave emotionally distraught, so Health Center workers spend a lot of time with the victims.
The Health Center also can help establish victim contact with a group called "A Better Way," which holds support groups for victims of sexual assault.
The Counseling Center offers group and individual counseling for victims of sexual assault and has written information about what to do if one suspects he, she or a friend has been sexually assaulted.
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