Field Project Reflection

     When we started our work on this project, the scope seemed a lot more overwhelming than it ultimately was, but there also seemed to be a lot more time than there ultimately was. This process has gone by very quickly, but we have kept mostly on top of our work and gathered the resources we needed together to create a pretty comprehensive guide to sexual harassment reporting.

    My first takeaway is that this issue is extraordinarily confusing. It did reassure me that there was a need for this guide because having to sift through all that information right after a deeply traumatic event would be even more difficult, but sifting through it regularly was still quite challenging. There's a lot of very specific legal language associated with Title IX, and I am no law expert. It also seems like different institutions have very different policies, and so outside of Uni-specific policies, it's even more difficult to make a document that's broadly accurate and helpful--as we wanted this one to be. Everyone can experience sexual harassment, and people who are no longer in school, or experienced it outside of a school context, should have just as much access to resources, although that is obviously not the case. 

    After sifting through all of the complicated policies and definitions, the packet came together relatively quickly. Once we had developed an understanding of the way reporting basically functioned and what it looked like, it was pretty easy to bring all of that together. The only issue that we ran into at that stage was making sure we accounted for as many different kinds of situations as possible, as there are many ways that people can experience sexual harassment that they might need specific information on. 

    In the end, I think that there is still probably a lot of potentially useful information that we're unaware of or unable to provide. I think that resources like the one we have created are useful, and I'm glad that we did it, but I think that having additional resources or ones created by people with more expertise and experience about the reporting process might be of equal or greater value. 

Comments

  1. Emily C.May 27, 2022 at 8:19 PM

    It's great to hear that your project came together smoothly, for the most part! I wouldn't have expected the difference between accessibility of resources that are connected to schools vs. not, so that's good to know. I agree that accounting for broader situations that occur both inside and outside of a school setting is important, and I'm glad your project took a step toward that goal.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Protests and Economic Instability in Sri Lanka

      On April 28, 2022, hundreds of labor unions in Sri Lanka went on strike to protest the current administration, headed by  President Gotabaya Rajapaksa. President Rajapaksa was elected in 2019 and almost immediately bankrupted the nation by introducing sweeping tax cuts. This has left Sri Lanka with massive foreign debts and almost no reserve, on the verge of completely running out of essential resources like food, water, and medicine. Rajapaksa comes from a wealthy and influential family that has been deeply intertwined in Sri Lankan politics for the last two decades. There has been a buildup of debt in the nation's government for an even longer period though, and a series of economically devastating events, most recently the COVID-19 pandemic, have left the country in a very desperate place.      Sri Lanka, like many nations that suffered over four centuries of brutal British colonization, is still dealing with the impact. In terms of its econom...
Read more

UIUC and Land

Prompt :  What role do you think U of I (and/or Uni) should play in addressing social justice issues, particularly related to Indigenous dispossession and its role in local housing segregation (two issues we’ve discussed in connection with U of I).     I think that the term "Land Acknowledgement" is misleading. This phrasing frames it as one distinct action that can be repeated as many times as necessary but is just for all intents and purposes, one and done. In addition, calling it an "acknowledgment" allows for it to stop there without a need for any further action, with just acknowledging...what exactly? It's a little unclear. The University clearly views it as acknowledging the fact that this land used to belong to other people, but not the method by which it was acquired. The Native American House's approach does include this second part, but their version is of course, optional. You could argue, and I think I would, that this intentional ignorance of t...
Read more