Strategies for Instructors

How do you appropriately reach out to Grace and/or Marnie to follow up?

• Are you a mandated reporter? With guidelines from the Department of Education periodically changing to reflect an ever-changing classroom, it is useful, both in protecting your students and protecting yourself, to check whether you are a mandated reporter.
  • Title IX provides this resource to determine your status as a mandatory reporter and what your next steps will be.
• What is the difference between a complaint and a report, and what happens next?
  • A complaint does not mean that a student must file an official report against the accused party. When a complaint from a mandatory reporter is filed with the Title IX office, a follow-up with both the TA and the supervisor to determine what is known about the situation and who the information came from will be sent. After the situation has been assessed, Title IX will then send an outreach email to the student in question with support resources based on the context of the situation.
• Both student opinion and research reflect the importance of outreach and providing student support resources in a situation involving suspected or confirmed sexual assault, abuse, domestic violence, or assault.
• While each college and department may have differing policies on complaints, reports, and outreach, Title IX representatives stress the necessity of providing support resources to students who may be experiencing harm in the form of sexual violence, assault, domestic violence, and all forms of abuse.
  • Support resources may include:
    • Connection to the Women’s Resource and Action Center (WRAC) at the University of Iowa for confidential counseling and victim advocacy resources for any concerned parties.
    • Connection to Title IX resources for academic accommodations (e.g., deadline extension, make-up testing, separation of a victim and their abuser, and no-contact and restraining orders).
    • Connection to University Counseling Service.
• Other forms of student support from a teaching assistant or other close faculty member as suggested by the Women’s Resource and Action Center (WRAC):
  • Reaching out to the student who approached you with a concern may be helpful to both the potential victim and the student who confided in you.
    • While Marnie is not directly being victimized, witnessing a close friend being harmed by a domestic partner can still be a traumatic and deeply stressful experience. Connecting Marnie with WRAC is suggested as they are a resource for confidential consultation.
    • WRAC’s services can offer a better understanding and perspective of the situation and in regards to next steps for a concerned friend. They are also able to provide victim advocates and counseling services for the possible victim in question.

• But what if your course has nothing to do with interpersonal relationships?
  • Domestic violence is an intersectional issue. While it is easy to find issues with bringing a conversation about such a topic into, for example, Chemistry 101, social issues do not occur in a vacuum. Have you ever witnessed an issue happening on campus or, more broadly, in the country finding its way into the classroom?
• Suggestions for each course may be different.
  • For example, in a nursing course, conversations surrounding domestic violence may be based in real-world application for recognizing warning signs. In a law course, the topic could be raised in terms of a family law and victim advocacy. This is not always possible, and you may find it necessary to talk to your students because of a rise in abuse on campus.
  • How can this be best addressed? While you may not be a mandatory reporter, especially for an issue that was brought to your attention by a second party, dialogues and safe spaces for students can be fostered by simply including a snippet in your syllabus about resources on campus that could be helpful to a student in a tough situation (University Counseling Service, Rape Victim Advocacy Program, and Women’s Resource and Action Center).

If you are truly concerned for the safety of a student, bringing links to the above resources to the top of their inbox via an ICON announcement or an email may provide those resources in the best way.