Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, has opened a new center on campus to help prevent sexual assault and provide support for victims. In the past, Project Safe operated out of the Margaret Cuninggim Women’s Center on campus. Beginning this fall Project Safe will have a new home on campus. The mission of the center will be to further the current work of Project Safe with an increased focus on developing ways to partner with students, faculty and staff to create a campus culture that rejects violence, and to engage men and individuals of various gender identities in bystander intervention and sexual assault prevention.
Richard McCarty, provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs, stated, “This new center makes it clear that women and the women’s center at the university cannot be the only ones to ‘own’ the important work of education and prevention. To effectively address sexual assault and other forms of power-based personal violence, everyone at this university must have a role.”