Minutes

Safer Schools Sexual Assault Task Force Meeting

Tuesday, March 28, 2017

2:00 pm - 4:00 pm

Mission Hall, 1589 4th Street, Room 2100

San Francisco, CA, 94158

Participants:

 

Task Force Members

Captain Una Bailey

Denise Caramagno

Amelia Gilbert

Minouche Kandel, on behalf of Luoluo Hong

J. Ocean Mottley

Leslie Simon

Stacey Wiggall

Denise Sicat Wong

 

Absent:

Gena Castro Rodriguez

Janelle White

 

Consultant

Julia Weber

 

Members of the Public

Emberly Cross, Cooperative Restraining Order Clinic

Mike Denson, UCSF Chief of Police

Elise Hansel, Department on the Status of Women

Maggie McHale, Department on the Status of Women

Dr. Renee Navarro, UCSF Vice Chancellor

Carol Takao UCSF Assistant Vice Chancellor

 

 

1. Agenda Approved. (Kandel/Caramagno)

 

2. Approved the February 28, 2017 meeting minutes. (Sicat Wong/ Mottley)

 

3.  UCSF Presentation

Dr. Navarro, the Vice Chancellor of Diversity and Outreach for UCSF, presented to the group about the policies at UCSF regarding sexual assault.  The UCSF campus is a graduate only campus.  Some challenges relate to the fact that there are over 5,000 volunteer faculty. Additionally, the university has a number of different locations throughout the San Francisco Bay Area and students and faculty move to various locations on a regular basis.

 

The establishment of the CARE advocate program has changed the way UCSF deals with sexual assault. The CARE program educates and provides an in person presentation at  orientation for students when they begin at UCSF.  The CARE program also advocates for survivors and helps survivors to navigate through the services offered. Every UC campus has a CARE office; the office size is different at each different campus.

 

In comparison to other campuses, the incident rate for of sexual assault is much lower at UCSF. The main issue is communicating with the many locations that UCSF students travel to about harassment and discrimination prevention. 

 

Dr. Takao, the Vice Chancellor of Student Life at UCSF spoke to the group about the Coordinated Review Team. This team started in 2015 and pursues the 8 goals established by the UC Sexual Assault Task Force:  engage all students within the first 6 weeks; adopt system wide investigation standards; develop a comprehensive training and education strategy; educate the campus community on resources available; establish an independent confidential CARE advocates office; establish a comprehensive system wide online resource guide; standardize data and metric guidelines; and provide equitable support for those accused of violating sexual assault policies.

 

Faculty and staff have a state requirement for training every two years. The UCSF campus provides an online training as well as a live theatre group twice a year that can be substituted for the online platform. Title XI investigators and Police investigators are required to attend a 40 hour training.  The police receive the training through POST.

The examples in the trainings frame sexual assault from a social justice perspective and a public health perspective, to make them more relevant for professional students.  The trainings approach the students as adult learners, researchers, and future health care professionals.

 

Chief Denson, the chief of UCSF Police Department spoke to the Task Force on the MOU with the District Attorney, Police Department, and Department of Public Health that he spearheaded, which is now in place at many San Francisco University campuses. Chief Denson brought the MOU to DA George Gascon, who then sent the MOU to the other Universities in San Francisco. The establishment of an MOU at each campus is a possible recommendation by the Task Force.

 

4. Presentations from Six Focus Areas
   1. Prevention and education
   15. Leslie Simon and J. Ocean Mottley co- chair the prevention and education workgroup.  The workgroup proposed that the two peer educator training classes at City College be offered to students at other San Francisco Colleges.  A creation of a survey or a rubric to decide the level of prevention education of each University would also be a helpful tool for Universities to self-grade. Another recommendation by the workgroup is to create a syllabi addition to prevent harassment in all forms. Leslie Simon’s students will create a survey questionnaire for college’s prevention and education programs and the Department on the Status of Women intern will make the calls to the schools to gather the information.

 

2. Policy development and implementation
   • Denise Caramagno and J. Ocean Mottley co-chair the policy development and implementation workgroup.  Denise spoke to the group on the unintended negative consequences of mutual no contact directives. A mutual no contact directive is often issued as an interim measure at UC campuses.  Although the no contact directives are meant to be neutral, they tend to negatively affect the victim of sexual assault. A possible recommendation to the Board of Supervisors is to get rid of the mutual no contact directive. Another recommendation from this workgroup is to centralize the disciplinary process. Possibly create an oversight committee by pooling the resources from each campus and conducting independent investigations. 

 

3. Climate Surveys, performance measurement, and Evaluation
   • Amelia Gilbert is the lead in this workgroup and is currently working to develop a survivor created rubric to assess the level of sexual assault prevention and intervention work happening at each college.  She is also working to understand how schools think about how much money is involved with implementing Title IX requirements. Amelia will share the survivor created rubric by the end of April and circulate the draft to ask for any gaps. She will co-chair the May Task Force meeting. 

 

4. Transparency
   • Denise Sicat Wong has held interviews with San Francisco students. She has also recruited high school students to administer the surveys designed to get student input on the reporting process in the colleges.