By Jewell Porter
Editor-in-Chief
In past years, students making allegations about sexual misconduct on campus would gather before a body of students, staff and administrators to deliver their own case regarding their part in an alleged sexual assault case.
After new information about how to better handle these types of cases emerged, the policy was changed so that there was a formal investigator who would either be affiliated or not affiliated with the University in a formal capacity. The investigator would interview students involved with the case to piece a story together about what happened.
But after the government mandated that all universities comply to their set of standards about investigating sexual assault cases, the administration formally implemented changes to its own policy on July 1.
Some of these changes were simple: they just involved changing and adding language that the University uses about cases of sexual assault. For example, the college must specify that it engages in prevention education, which was already present on this campus during events like August Orientation.
Some of the changes simply update or add definitions to some key terms when addressing a case of sexual assault.
For example, definitions of terms like “responsible employee” were added, which means people who are responsible for reporting sexual assault on campus if a student releases this information. This was already part of the reporting procedure on Denison’s campus, but now there is a formal, universal word for who those people are. Other definitions that were added were also key terms