Join the Team! One Team and Team Kenan Couch on Sexual Respect
This past week, members of One Team collaborated with Team Kenan to “couch” on questions and actions around sexual respect on campus. One Team is a new “Sexual Respect Initiative” at Duke, stemming from a multi-year Bass Connections project: Prevention of Sexual Misconduct on University Campuses: Intervention, Implementation and Evaluation, headed by Moran Anisman-Razin (Kenan Institute for Ethics), Suzanne Shanahan (Kenan Institute for Ethics), and Sim Sitkin (Fuqua School of Business).
One Team member Nora Benmamoun pointed to alarming statistics in last year’s campus climate survey finding that 48% of undergrad women and 14% of undergrad men will experience sexual assault during their time at Duke. In response, the team launched the One Team campaign to address sexual misconduct awareness and prevention and to engage the Duke community in conversation about this problem.
“As part of the campaign, we are launching a social media campaign that we hope will raise awareness among Duke students to the various resources and support, increase participation and engagement in prevention and active bystander intervention and reevaluate social norms about gender norms and sexual misconduct. We will also be couching with Team Kenan to discuss sexual respect with Students, host a variety of events, and soon will be putting posters around Duke’s campus that talk about what exactly is sexual misconduct and consent and how students can be active bystanders, so keep an eye out for that!”
– Nora Benmamoun, Sophomore, Asian and Middle Eastern Studies and Economics
Drawing on Team Kenan’s expertise in engaging spontaneous conversations with students around weekly topics related to ethics, One Team adopted the same brand of interacting with students at various times and locations around campus this week. While Team Kenan compiles anonymous findings from their couching conversations in their weekly blog, One Team further challenges Duke students to join the team by signing a pledge to be committed to learning, intervening, and supporting other team members to create an environment of sexual respect at Duke. For Team Kenan member JJ Jiang, the couching topics are often difficult to talk about and controversial, but also crucial to fostering changes. “This week’s partnership with Bass Connections and the topic of Sexual Misconduct demonstrates that those at Duke are willing to have difficult conversations and reflect on how their actions influence their greater community.”
“One Team is based on the idea that it takes all of us to create a respectful culture at Duke. Every student on Duke’s campus has a responsibility to make sure that this changes, and I hope that our campaign will make Duke students more aware of what they can do to address this issue, whether that be through educating themselves or learning how to be an active bystander. We hope that every student can get involved in this campaign through going on our website and signing our pledge to show that they’re on the team!”
– Moran Anisman-Razin, Team Leader
