Oregon State’s Sexual Assault Bystander Prevention Program Wins a National Award

Oregon State University’s sexual assault bystander intervention program has been honored by NASPA – Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education. The university received the Excellence Award for Violence Education and Prevention, Crisis Management, Campus Security and Related Excellence.

The university’s Beavers Give a Dam is an interactive bystander program to prevent sexual violence. This skill-building workshop offered by Prevention & Wellness at Student Health Services is customizable for different communities and aims to increase participants’ motivation and confidence to intervene. Beavers Give a Dam reached nearly 5,000 students in its first two years.

Michelle Bangen, associate director of Prevention & Wellness at Oregon State University, reports that “preliminary findings show significant increases in participant knowledge and decreases in a few key rape myth acceptance items. And perhaps more importantly, 91 percent of participants think they can personally help prevent sexual violence and 94 percent feel confident in performing bystander intervention.”