Violence Prevention

Our goal

Prevent violence among Western Michigan University students

Our objectives

• Improve communication about sexual violence and related resources
• Increase help seeking behavior for sexual violence
• Empower our campus community to enhance safety

Our measures

• Increase the proportion of students who indicate receiving information on violence prevention from their institution from 33 percent (2011) to 50 percent (2020)
• Increase the proportion of students who indicate receiving information on sexual assault/relationship violence prevention from their institution from 51 percent (2011) to 65 percent (2020).
• Increase the proportion of students who seek resources if they experience sexual violence from 62 percent (2015) to 70 percent (2020).
• Increase the proportion of students who indicate feeling very safe on this campus at night from 19 percent (2011) to 27 percent (2020).
• Increase participation in bystander intervention skills training from 1,098 (2013) to 10,000 students/employees (2020).
• Increase awareness of the WMU bystander intervention program from 22 percent (2013) to 50 percent (2020).

What we are doing about it

• Disseminating the WMU sexual misconduct policy to all students and employees
• Developing, implementing, and evaluating a campus-wide train-the-trainer program for Western H.E.R.O.E.S.

Notes

More details are available in the WMU HC2020 Student Violence Prevention Action Plan

WMU is implementing many more strategies that impact mental health than are listed here. The Healthy Campus 2020 committee recommends priority, collaborative efforts for WMU. Some strategies are targeted and others are universal–designed to impact several of our HC2020 goals and objectives, not just the one they align with on the action plan.

ACHA-National College Health Assessment II is the primary data source informing this HC2020 initiative. Additional data is also being monitored and utilized for strategic planning and assessment with BeHealthyWMU.