Goucher College joins NASPA Culture of Respect Collective

Goucher College has announced its membership to the NASPA Culture of Respect Collective, a two-year program for higher education institutions to collaborate with peers to improve institutional efforts addressing campus sexual violence. NASPA Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education is the professional society for student affairs and is dedicated to integrity, innovation, inclusion, and inquiry. This new initiative launches at Goucher this semester and will incorporate Goucher campus community members at every level.  

“We are committed to making meaningful change, and joining the NASPA Culture of Respect Collective is one of the many ways we are working toward creating a safe and supportive environment for our entire community,” said Kent Devereaux, Goucher College President. “This is hard but important work that is central to our college’s mission of emphasizing respect and inclusion.” 

Culture of Respect is a NASPA initiative that builds educational institutions’ capacity to end sexual violence through ongoing, expansive organizational change. The initiative will partner with Goucher stakeholders to create policies and programs that support survivors, prevent sexual violence, and communicate that violence is unacceptable. 

The Culture of Respect Collective two-year program brings together higher education institutions dedicated to ending campus sexual violence and guides them through a rigorous self-assessment process and targeted organizational change. 

At Goucher, Vice President of Student Affairs and Dean of Students Aarika Camp and Associate Dean of Students for Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Title IX Juan Hernandez will be building a Community Leadership Team responsible for the work associated with the Collective. The Community Leadership Team will include more than a dozen representatives from various offices and student groups across campus. The team will be in place by the end of February 2021. 

“Joining NASPA’s Culture of Respect Collective further cements the college’s commitment to better preventing sexual violence and supporting survivors,” says Hernandez. “I look forward to the substantive work that the Community Leadership Team will be responsible for and for partnering with the Goucher Consent Coalition and other student-centered campus groups in this work.”

The Culture of Respect Collective builds on other recent initiatives from Goucher’s Office of Title IX, including hiring a deputy Title IX coordinator, new software to help with case administration and institutional memberships to the Cleary Center and the Student Conduct Institute.