Camosun College is seeking student input on its Sexual Violence and Misconduct Policy. As part of the provincial Sexual Violence and Misconduct Policy Act, the college is required to review the policy every three years; Camosun vice president of student experience Heather Cummings says that when the policy was reviewed recently, they had aspects pointed out to them that could be strengthened to make it more student-focused. She talked with two students, members of the Camosun College Student Society, Camosun Student Affairs staff, and college security over the winter semester about how best to move forward with critiquing the policy.
“I really wanted to chat with the people who live and breathe the operationalizing of this policy,” says Cummings. “What are students telling us works and doesn’t work? We really heavily relied on that feedback.”
Cummings says there was a lot of feedback on what works in the policy as well as feedback on what could be strengthened. Students for Consent Culture Canada, a national group that evaluates campus policies, said the college should use more of a trauma-informed approach.
“It was removing language about fault support, because having that language assumes that there’s a chance that someone’s not telling the truth,” says Cummings. “That’s not supportive.”
The update also removed language about people’s past sexual behaviour.
“How is that relevant to the current situation?” says Cummings.
The college also focused on clarification of interim supports in the policy, to help students feel safe.
“If two students are in the same class and there’s been an allegation of violence, we may put some things in place to keep both of those students safe while we’re figuring out the extent of the situation,” says Cummings.
The majority of the cases the college hears about are filed and dealt with on an informal level; in those situations, Cummings says people may just want “some consideration, some compassion from the institution.”
“And that’s what we do,” she says. “In fact, that’s the majority of the work that we do with respect to sexual violence management at the college. But if they make a formal report, they are requesting, then, some type of investigation into the matter. And it’s at, honestly, the complainant’s discretion; they decide.”
If a case does go to the police, Cummings says the college reserves the right to continue its investigation, and the policy clarifies what taking a complaint to the legal stages means.
“A police investigation is separate from the college,” she says. “We are not engaged in that. If, though, there may be a situation where the police may ask us to suspend our investigation—I’m not sure if that’s ever actually happened—certainly, we would have to respect law enforcement.”
Cummings says that many of the complaints the college deals with do not happen in person; people are still learning how to behave with each other online, she says, and it’s reasonable to think that a student could make a complaint without realizing it could be very upsetting for the person they are complaining about.
“That would be part of our conversation, of, well, ‘The person now knows, and they’re apologetic and it won’t happen again.’ Then we’ve sort of informally resolved that,” she says. “That’s where the college can be a really great resource for students.”
Part of that process is educating students, listening to complainants and respondents, and teaching students how to communicate, says Cummings.
“It’s very important that students feel like our procedures and our policies in the college are student friendly—that students see themselves, that a respondent sees themselves, reflected in this policy, and that there’s supports for them. That a student who [is the] complainant feels like they’re going to be in control, and they’re going be believed.”
Students can view the policy at camosun.ca and provide feedback by emailing Cummings at cummingsh@camosun.bc.ca.