Consent Awareness WeekGuidesColleges and universities

Making consent visible on campus

The “Red Zone” is what campus-safety researchers refer to as the early weeks of the fall term, roughly from move-in to Thanksgiving, when reports of sexual assault spike, especially among first-year students. We name the timing to prepare, and keep the focus on accountability: the danger is predatory behaviour that exploits those weeks, not students’ choices to socialize.

Ways to take part See all guides
71%

of students at Canadian post-secondary schools witnessed or experienced unwanted sexualized behaviours in a post-secondary setting in 2019.[1]

1 in 10

women students were sexually assaulted in a post-secondary setting in a single year, compared with 1 in 25 men.[2]

Ways to take part

These are ideas you’re welcome to adapt, not a to-do list. Take what fits your campus.

  • Students and student groupsYou might host a screening, run a consent table during orientation, complete bystander training, or bring it to a club, team, or residence floor.
  • Faculty and instructorsYou might add a consent-and-support statement to your syllabus, name campus resources in the first week, and get familiar with how to receive a disclosure.
  • Student affairs and residence lifeYou might weave consent into orientation and residence programming, support peer leaders, and make support services easy to find.
  • AdministrationYou might review and promote your sexual violence policy, resource your prevention office, and support student-led work.

Ideas for the week

Some themes you might draw on: shared language for consent (Free, Prior, and Informed Consent, and the CHOICE framework for everyday consent); responding to disclosures (We Believe You and BRAVE); bystander intervention; safer socializing and substances; and digital consent and online safety.

For senior administrators: three actions on policy

Leaders shape the conditions that keep students safe. If your institution is developing or reviewing policy this year, here are three priorities to keep in mind.

  1. Make sure all learning contexts, including placements, co-ops, and other off-campus settings, are clearly within the scope of your sexual violence and related policies.
  2. Spell out clearly how the institution will address sexual harassment and violence when it happens.
  3. Develop a specific protocol for responding to sexual harassment and violence, so staff and students know what to expect.

If your review cycle doesn’t touch these areas this year, you might still keep the conversation going, by joining a panel or sponsoring an event where this is the focus.

Safer campus communities: further reading

Courage Catalysts: Creating Consent Culture on Campusa guide created by students, for students, on advocacy and gender-based violence prevention Campus Toolkit for Creating Consent Culturefrom the Canadian Federation of Students–Ontario Impact of the Undressing Consent Programan evaluation of consent education at Western University Racism and Sexual Violencea primer from the Sexual Assault Centre of Edmonton on the intersections between racism and sexual violence No. You Cannot Touch My Hair!a TEDx Talk by Mena Fombo on non-consensual touch, misogynoir, and bodily autonomy

Frequently asked questions

We already run consent training at orientation. Why mark the week as well?

Orientation training is a single moment, usually delivered to students in their first week when they are absorbing a great deal at once. The week takes place a bit later, once people have settled and the material has somewhere to land. It also reaches staff, faculty, and administration, who are often not in the room for student orientation at all.

Our institution has no sexual violence prevention office. Can we still take part?

Yes. Plenty of what is on this page requires no dedicated office: a syllabus statement, a residence floor conversation, a screening, a library display, and clearly naming your support services in the first week of term. Start with what one person or one department can do without new funding.

Support: If you or someone you know has been subjected to sexual violence, you can connect with your campus sexual violence support office, a local sexual assault centre, or another support service. In an emergency, contact your local emergency number.

References

Sources for the figures and claims on this page. Numbers match the citations above.

  1. [1] Burczycka, M. (2020). Students’ experiences of unwanted sexualized behaviours and sexual assault at postsecondary schools in the Canadian provinces, 2019. Juristat, Statistics Canada. statcan.gc.ca

  2. [2] Statistics Canada. (2020, September 14). One in ten women students sexually assaulted in a postsecondary setting. The Daily. statcan.gc.ca