During the 2005- 06 school year, there were two different occasions where women reported false rapes on the FAU Boca Raton campus. However, it was more publicized than the rapes that actually did occur. But the fact is, it happens – even here. According to the U.S. Department of Education’s Web site, there were seven cases of forcible sex offenses on FAU’s campus from 2003 through 2005. Even with that in mind, the American Association of University Women estimates that five percent of victims report the crimes nationwide.
Ana Halper, a freshman at FAU, doesn’t believe that FAU has all the resources for sexually assaulted victims that it should. She is on a mission to change that.
Halper’s goal is to gain student support for a new wellness center which could deal with all students’ issues, such as nutrition education, rape counseling and substance abuse in one centralized location.
“If you are raped, you have to go to several different places to cope with the consequences: the police, the therapists, the doctors,” Halper says. “You can’t have your needs taken care of in one place.”
Halper believes that this is not the ideal situation for somebody who urgently needs help, whether they are a rape victim or a person battling substance abuse. Halper believes that making people go to multiple locations to get help would not be beneficial to the victim.
“It would be good to have it centralized because a lot of these issues are interrelated,” she says. “For example, drugs and sexual abuse.”
She believes that as FAU grows, it makes sense for it to have a facility that would be able to take care of every student’s mental and physical health needs in the best way possible.
FAU Victim Advocate Angie Gifford uses the Student Services Building as a model for how the proposed wellness center would function. She explains that it is highly convenient for students to be able to have all of their administration needs, from class registration to financial aid, taken care of in one place.
Halper hopes that the new wellness center would operate in a similar way – a one stop “shop” for all of a student’s health needs.
“Most modern universities have a facility like this,” she says. “We need this as we progress in other areas towards becoming a modern university.”
When told about Halper’s efforts, Wellness Director Rosemary Dunbar fully supported the idea, saying that “I think it’s great for a student to take this initiative.”
Currently, there is an intention to institute a wellness facility as the second stage in the University’s wellness development. The first stage consists of the recreation center, which will be funded by student’s money. However, the future of the second stage- the wellness center- is doubtful. To date, there isn’t any funding for this stage of the center, and the facility would have to be funded by donations.
According to Dunbar, a facility like this is essential to all members of the FAU community.
“[It’s] exactly what we’ve been wanting all along,” Dunbar says. “That’s the best way to help the students.”
Dunbar emphasizes that if the facility has any hope of being built, students should take the initiative to make it happen.
“Student support is needed,” she says. “If the students truly want this, they have to make their voices heard that this is something they need.”
That’s where Halper comes in. Halper believes that the student action is vital to the creation of such an important facility.
“We need to make [the wellness center] a priority of this administration. If there’s a student movement, it could help,” she says.
In order to spark a student movement, Halper has been collecting signatures for a petition. Already, she has seen interest in the issue. “The petition has received hundreds of signatures,” she says.
For more information about this issue, you can contact Halper at [email protected].
Check out Halper and other students who have continuously protested against Lawrence Davenport’s severance package in this week’s University
