Administrator starts rape awareness programs

By Liam Satre-Meloy

As a tomboy grade-schooler living in Loudonville, New York, Lisa Millora remembers reading a book about the Nazi persecution of the Jews during Wor ld War II. Infuriated by the description of the horrors the Jews endured, she pledged to make a difference.

"I really wanted to be a civil rights activist. At one point I thought I might become a lawyer and prosecute war crimes for World War II. I mean, I was like seven," said Millora. "But I have always found myself drawn to wanting to right the wrongs in the world."

In only her third year as an assistant dean for the Office of Student Life, she has begun to unveil a startlingly grave issue that plagues the Santa Clara party scene -- forced or coerced sexual activity.

Millora's first experience with gender inequity came in middle school.

"I can remember the very first time someone told me she was raped, and she didn't even use those words," Millora said. "I must have been 14 years old and would never have connected the fact that she actually was raped until the last five or six years."

In assuming her role as assistant dean, Millora found herself adeptly positioned to initiate a campaign to raise awareness of the prevalence of sexual assault and rape on the Santa Clara campus, as well as to fight violent crimes toward women as a whole.

"The very first thing I did was start up a passive media campaign," she said. "We put information (about sexual assault and rape) in the resident halls permanently, we sent e-mails and distributed magnets to faculty and staff."

Then, in the fall of 2004, a year after she assumed her new position, Millora brought a program called 1 in 4: The Men's Program to the community.

In short, 1 in 4 is a peer education program designed to provide men with resources for friends who have been raped or sexually assaulted and to raise awareness about the prevalence of sexual crimes on college campuses.

These peer educators -- all of whom go through over 15 hours of training -- present a scripted conversation to a group of their peers, which includes a video that provides a detailed account of a raped police officer.

This unique video helps men to realize what it's like to be raped and inspires them to join the fight against sexual assault and rape.

"Establishing 1 in 4 was one of the first steps in putting our philosophy out there that this is everybody's problem," Millora said. "It's not just a woman's issue. It's not just men who have to end it. Because as we know, anybody can perpetrate a sexual assault and it doesn't matter who or what."

Concurrent with the startup of the 1 in 4, Millora applied for and was awarded a grant from the Department of Justice to help fight violent crimes against women.

In the fall of 2005, she brought a similar peer education program called Every Two Minutes -- this time directed toward a female audience -- to Santa Clara.

Both programs are quickly gaining student attention, and the number of peer educators involved has reached nearly fifty.

Millora believes that these two programs have been at the core of the growing success and credibility garnered by the sexual assault and rape movement at Santa Clara.

The key, Millora explained, is peer education.

"It becomes very obvious to students that in becoming a resource it would be awfully hypocritical to try to support your friend who is a survivor and not try to change all of the things that may have helped to create a culture where sexual assault or rape can happen," Millora said. "That's why (the program) is so powerful."

Both programs also highlight the importance of changing the social norms that contribute to an environment where sexual assault and rape are possible.

"If our social norms are that women are to be objectified, then it becomes a lot easier to treat a woman without dignity and respect," said Millora.

"I think we have a really important mission as a university that is socially conscious, that asks us to serve the underprivileged, and if we can't connect all of those important ideals back to our everyday actions, that's a problem," she said. "In certain situations, those most in need might be women who are victims."

While 1 in 4 and E2M have helped students realize how they can help stop rape and sexual assault, the programs have also raised awareness of the frequency of the crime.

At Santa Clara, "there's the myth out there that because we're such a small campus, we're immune to rape and sexual assault," Millora said. "That's naïve and idealistic, and I don't think that the people who believe it doesn't happen are hateful; it's just that they haven't been exposed to it, or that they can't name it."

The peer-education programs have not only discredited this myth, but have also begun to change other false perceptions.

Fortunately, because of 1 in 4 and E2M, Millora figures, "Less than half the population (at Santa Clara) believes that rape is committed by some crazy stranger."

As of early May 2006, 11 cases of rape and sexual assault had been reported during this school year.

That is up from eight or nine reported during the last year, and Millora expects there to be even more before the school year is out.

Initially, this number may confuse people. The increase in reported cases does not reflect an increase in the actual number of rapes or sexual assaults committed within the Santa Clara community. Instead, it indicates an increase in the number of cases reported.

"The change has been gradual but noticeable," Millora said. "An obvious indicator has been that each year the number of reports (of sexual assault and rape) have increased. Every couple of weeks we get a new report, and I'm sure there are more out there."

An increased tendency to report sexual crimes suggests that people are starting to understand that they should not blame themselves for unwanted sex and that they should speak out against rape and dating violence.

Millora continues to develop different programs at Santa Clara to fight violence against women.

She relentlessly pursues her childhood dream of fighting injustice and, in doing so, has encouraged and empowered more and more students to join a greater fight against any social norm that "makes it OK to continue to dehumanize the 'other,' the 'lesser' and then to perpetrate violence in whatever form."

Contact Liam Satre-Meloy at lsatremeloy@scu.edu.