Undergraduate Students' Perceptions of Institutional Responses to and the Prevention of Sexual Violence on Commuter College Campuses

Background and purpose:

While comprehensive blueprints are increasingly available for sexual assault response and prevention initiatives at post-secondary institutions, many are geared toward residential, “traditional” campuses. These models often include robust mechanisms for complying with Title IX requirements, and incorporate prevention initiatives in “captive audience” spaces such as mandated orientation sessions and residential settings. It is unclear, however, how well these models meet the needs of students on non-residential, largely “commuter” campuses. Commuter students may be more diverse than residential students along multiple dimensions including but not limited to age, race/ethnicity, SES, life stage, parenting or employment status, and military affiliation. Further, commuter students may spend limited time on campus and have trauma-related experiences that are not well-addressed by Title IX-related policies and services alone. The purpose of this exploratory study was therefore to assess commuter campus students’ perceptions of the strengths and limitations of their institutions’ infrastructure for preventing and responding to sexual violence.

Methods:

Eleven focus groups were conducted with a total of 71 undergraduate students across three commuter campuses.  All campuses were 4-year institutions with limited to no on-campus housing. Students were recruited through introductions of the study during classes across a range of courses/departments and through advertisement flyers. Focus groups were held on campus, ran between 75-90 minutes, and were digitally recorded and professionally transcribed. Data were analyzed using thematic analysis. Students ranged in age from 18-36 (mean = 22), with 73% identifying as female, 24% as male, and 3% as non-binary. Approximately 4% identified as African American or Black, 18% as Asian/Asian American, 11% as Latino/a, 8% as multi-racial, 3% as South Asian, and 54% as White.

Results:

Three primary initial themes emerged. First, students reported a disconnection from a campus community, resulting in under-utilization of and a lack of awareness of or attention to available resources, and/or not seeing campus as place for anything other than going to class, even if victimization-related trauma is impeding academic success. The second theme, no wrong door, emerged because participants mostly had little awareness of sexual violence-related response systems, but based their perceptions of campus response on whatever campus offices they had actually accessed. Often this translated to favorable views of the campus’ resources, although participants also noted a discrepancy between the diversity of the student bodies, and the diversity and inclusiveness of the staff and faculty with whom they interacted most. Third, participants noted numerous commuter-specific barriers, such as resource constraints (time, parking funds, the need to work full time), accessibility of services, and challenges to establishing supportive social networks.

Conclusions and Implications:

When adapting models of sexual violence prevention and response, commuter campuses need to contend with how to address victimization that occurs off campus, impacts student success, and  which students may not view as ‘eligible’ for campus-based support. Creative approaches to prevention and services advertising are needed that do not additionally burden already over-stressed commuter students, and that leverage existing connections and relationships they have with campus personnel and with each other.