A Call to Action: We Will DU Better

As the video linked below addresses, this campus – our university – faces one of its most difficult issues ever: the enormous harm that is being inflicted through sexual assault and gender violence. It is our responsibility to confront and stop it immediately.

The graphic and deeply disturbing stories recently shared by students, alumni and faculty on Instagram are horrifying. This is a pivotal time for the University of Denver. We cannot, nor will not, tolerate a culture that accepts this violence against members of our community. Starting today we must make this a new era for the University of Denver.

We will immediately provide increased trauma-informed training of campus safety officers and others. We will also carefully and quickly review our existing policies and procedures to better support survivors, and provide expanded educational programming and trainings to create a culture that positively reinforces the expression of healthy masculinity among our students. These are just a few of the things we can do now.

Watch the video. Visit instagram.com/wecandubetter. Join our students in silent protest on Tuesday at 12:30 p.m. on Carnegie Green. Together, we will listen to survivors as they tell us what we need to do and how we can best support them. The path forward will emerge for us, but only if we invest concentrated time, attention, and resources towards this issue immediately.

Sincerely,

Jeremy Haefner