24 January 2024
Petition to Return University of Alberta Sexual Assault Centre (UASAC)'s Baseline Services and Programs

We petition for a return to baseline on-campus service to survivors of sexual violence and continued education around sexual violence through workshops and Sexual Assault Awareness Week.

The University of Alberta Sexual Assault Centre (UASAC) has provided drop-in and appointment-based services to survivors of sexual violence and concerned individuals, as well as educational workshops about topics like consent and supporting survivors. A combined total of over 100 drop-ins and online text-and-chats (on campus and for the wider Alberta community) were served by the UASAC between September and November 2023 (UASAC Crisis Intervention Meeting Minutes, November 2023), which amounts to an average of over one person each day that the Centre is open. Some clients come to the UASAC more than once, such as after triggering episodes. The UASAC workshops that were planned through Eventbrite (eventbrite.ca/o/university-of-alberta-sexual-assau...) were held around once weekly in September and October 2023. The University of Alberta also holds a Sexual Assault Awareness Week biannually (ualberta.ca/current-students/sexual-assault-centre...), which can be seen as an acknowledgment of how widespread rape culture is and the need for it to be routinely addressed.

Since late November 2023, the space in which the UASAC operates has been made unavailable for drop-ins, and volunteer-led educational presentations have been put on hold, with no apparent date of return to regular operations. As of January 23, 2024, all in-person supports on campus are by appointment, per the UASAC website. This is a disservice to the university community, including those who regularly seek help from the UASAC and those who may do so in the future. Although the Sexual Assault Centre of Edmonton is filling the gap in text-and-chat support, it would be naive to assume that the need for drop-in services on campus has suddenly stopped since November 2023. There are no upcoming workshops on the UASAC Eventbrite page. President Flanagan has noted the "critical nature of the centre's work" (ualberta.ca/news/news-releases-and-statements/stat...) at the same time that the university is preventing this critical work from being done.

We petition for the following:

a) Resume regular UASAC operations immediately. If this cannot be done at this time, ensure that the baseline level of service is available on campus to survivors and concerned individuals, including an on-campus drop-in alternative.

b) Resume UASAC educational workshops by Feb. 26, 2024, when classes resume after Reading Week.

c) Ensure that Sexual Assault Awareness Week occurs this semester, as it has in previous semesters. (Last year's was held in February (ualberta.ca/current-students/sexual-assault-centre....)) Regardless of disruptions to the UASAC itself, rape culture continues, and so must addressing it on campus.

To

President William Flanagan

Vice-Presidents Verna Yiu, Andrew Sharman, Todd Gilchrist, Aminah Robinson Fayek, Elan MacDonald

Vice-Provost and Dean of Students Ravina Sanghera

Associate Vice-President, Human Resources, Health, Safety and Environment Marcie Chisholm

Vice-President Academic, Faculty Relations Michelle Strong

Sexual Violence Response Coordinator Deb Eerkes

The University of Alberta's Sexual and Gender-Based Violence Policy recognizes that the university has a responsibility to "raise awareness of consent, gender inclusivity, SGBV [sexual and gender-based violence] prevention, and appropriate responses to disclosures of SGBV" (p. 5), which we argue would include educational activities like workshops and Sexual Assault Awareness Week. We are sending this petition to you because

a) you are listed in the Sexual and Gender-Based Violence Policy among the "senior leaders [who] exercise administrative responsibility to implement this policy and the related procedures within [your] respective areas of responsibility, including by creating, supporting and maintaining a learning environment free from SGBV that promotes a culture of consent and inclusivity" (p. 6), and/or

b) you are listed as a person to contact in this "perceived deficit in University response" at the webpage "Options, Resources + Services for Those Who Have Been Subjected to Sexual Violence" (ualberta.ca/provost/policies-and-procedures/sexual....)

Update 03 September 2024

Petition to Restore the UASAC: September 2024 Update

Summary of update (September 2024):

• Since most of the UASAC’s services were halted in November, staff has been reduced further, to about half. Volunteers have also not been called back, and volunteer recruitment is deferred. A few new staff have been brought in.

• The University of Alberta did not meaningfully engage with our calls to bring in support from external organizations in order to provide continuity of sexual violence services on campus, and they did not accept our repeated invitations to meet with them to brainstorm other options for making services available on campus.

• Thankfully, the University of Alberta commits to restoring drop-in hours and educational programming for the upcoming semester. We are unsure if drop-in will remain a crisis intervention service, given the lack of trained volunteers and staff and ambiguous language used on the UASAC website. UASAC services and operations are undergoing an external review by a consulting agency named Possibility Seeds, and we are hopeful that the review will be made public on the UASAC website.

• The failure of the University of Alberta to ensure the availability of sexual violence services on campus is a systemic issue, and it is not reducible to the decisions of one or two people.

• We are all part of a community of survivors and advocates. Thank you for your support.


Hi, everyone,

We are so grateful to each of you for having signed the petition to restore services at the University of Alberta Sexual Assault Centre (UASAC). Limited drop-in hours have since opened up at the UASAC, which might not have occurred without your support. The petition is now a few months old, and we are sending you the following update.

Part of the impetus for this update is an article from May in the student newspaper, The Gateway (thegatewayonline.ca/2024/05/u-of-a-sexual-assault-....) We feel the need to clarify some points in the article that we find misleading. University representative Melissa Padfield claims that “[w]e’ve always had the ability for survivors to connect during the same kind of hours that they were able to connect to before”, although drop-in hours could benefit from being “beef[ed] up”. While it is true that survivors continue to have access to support through online and phone/text channels such as Alberta’s One Line and the Central Alberta Sexual Assault Support Centre, the UASAC’s in-person services offer a quality of support that contrasts with those accessed online and by phone/text, so that the services are not interchangeable. Padfield also offers that perhaps survivors “didn’t feel that we were available for services and supports”, as if survivors might be simply misinterpreting the availability of sexual violence services on campus. But in addition to any feelings of being neglected by the university – feelings that would be valid – services themselves have been, and continue to be, not available as before. For one, the UASAC website demonstrates that hours for drop-in crisis intervention are not back to 9AM to 5PM on weekdays, plus 5PM to 8PM twice a week: as of September 2, they remain at less than 50% of what they used to be (ualberta.ca/current-students/sexual-assault-centre....) And more generally, it is a stretch to take seriously any of Padfield’s testimonials of campus services when The Gateway reported that “to [Padfield’s] knowledge, the UASAC and other psychological support services [were] available to students in need” back in January (thegatewayonline.ca/2024/01/u-of-a-students-voice-...), as if Padfield was not even aware of any interruption to the UASAC months after its initial disruption in November.

Since November, when the UASAC Director was terminated from her position and the majority of UASAC services were halted, staff has been reduced further, to about half, by losing three more employees in January (thegatewayonline.ca/2024/02/more-u-of-a-sexual-ass....) The contributions of these three staff members included educational workshops and drop-in crisis intervention support, in addition to services for clients by appointment, such as assistance with university accommodations and accompaniment to legal or medical appointments. Over thirty education and drop-in crisis intervention volunteers remain uninvited to resume their work; and volunteer recruitment for the upcoming school year has not occurred, as it is “currently on hold” (ualberta.ca/current-students/sexual-assault-centre....) (To our knowledge, only a social worker and a new assistant dean have been added to the UASAC so far, and an interim director was briefly added. We are told that more staff positions are planned to be posted). One of the most maddening aspects of the University of Alberta’s management of its sexual violence services is its lack of engagement with the possibility of interim services: our suggestion to bring people from external organizations (for example, the Sexual Assault Centre of Edmonton) to campus while the UASAC’s capacity is limited was not met with meaningful engagement by the Dean of Students and former interim Director. Other suggestions might have been offered, but repeated invitations to meet with us and brainstorm together were not accepted, and it is challenging to think of more ways to facilitate the provision of sexual violence services when our question for why services were interrupted in the first place remains unanswered by them.

On a more hopeful note, the UASAC website has been updated with a plan to continue increasing services, with a “commit[ment] to having full-time drop-in hours and educational and volunteer programming available for the Fall 2024 term” (ualberta.ca/current-students/sexual-assault-centre....) Even though this conflicts with the aforementioned delay in volunteer recruitment, stating this commitment is itself a positive step forward, considering the university previously had “no timeline as to when UASAC will [re-]open”, even months after it was initially restricted (thegatewayonline.ca/2024/02/more-u-of-a-sexual-ass....) This plan includes consultation with an organization called Possibility Seeds for a review of the UASAC; and we are hopeful for transparency in this process, that we all might have access to their review on the UASAC website. However, without bringing in and training front-line volunteers and staff for the upcoming academic year, it is unclear how a timely restoration of services and implementation of the results of the review might be realized. The lack of volunteers and reduced staff, combined with the changing language on the UASAC website around drop-in services (“drop-in advising” or just “drop-in”, rather than “crisis intervention”) raises flags for a possible change in the quality of in-person services provided by the UASAC. This is particularly concerning given that the UASAC is, to our knowledge, the only centre in Edmonton specific to sexual violence that offers in-person, drop-in crisis intervention to students, university employees and other workers, and the broader public.

It is important to note that while certain people like the Dean of Students and former interim Director identify themselves as leaders through their updates on the UASAC website and therefore hold particular responsibility for the care of survivors, it would be misguided to suggest that they are simply deciding to restrict sexual violence services on campus, as if this entire situation could be reduced to a few decisions that a few people are making. This is a systemic issue. The University of Alberta as a whole holds responsibility around sexual and gender-based violence on campus: 3a) of its Sexual and Gender-Based Violence Policy (accessible at ualberta.ca/provost/policies-and-procedures/sexual...) lays out the University of Alberta’s institutional responsibilities, including providing “institution-wide education” (iii.) around sexual violence and “coordinated and comprehensive supports for [survivors] to reduce barriers to participation in [university life] that occur as a result of [sexual and gender-based violence]” (vii.). Upholding this policy and procedures arguably involves ensuring full functionality of UASAC services, or at least ensuring continuity of those services if the UASAC cannot provide them at a given time. The University of Alberta is not holding itself to account for its severe restrictions on the availability of sexual violence services on campus. We have been unable to find a mechanism internal to the university that could pressure the return of services (the mechanism that we are aware of requires complaints to be directed toward an individual, which is not representative of this systemic issue); and we have not found a reasonable external avenue to file a formal complaint (an Alberta human rights complaint, for example, would involve connecting with a survivor who satisfies particular criteria for filing the complaint, which is difficult to do in a way that respects confidentiality). The inadequacy of formal avenues of justice is not new in the area of sexual violence; options like the criminal legal system often do not address sexual assault sufficiently, or safely (https://www.leaf.ca/project/avenues-to-justice/)..) We are also admittedly new to this kind of advocacy and are unsure how we can be most effective for survivors.

We don’t know how many people in crisis are being missed. This is an unfortunate reality of a confidential service whose overseer has shut its eyes to those who it served. We also cannot quantify the effect of restrictions of education services on the continuation of rape culture on campus.

But “official” supports such as those found at sexual assault centres are not the only supports for survivors. The dedicated and caring front-line staff that thankfully remain able to do their work at the UASAC, they are part of a network of care that can include families, friends, and inner sources of strength. It is also reassuring to see others advocating for the restoration of sexual violence services on campus, from the open letters submitted by organizations such as Sexual Assault Voices of Edmonton (https://savedmonton.com/palestine-uasac/), the Non-Academic Staff Association (nasa.ualberta.ca/letter-concern-regarding-u-sexual...), and the Students’ Union (theflame.su.ualberta.ca/en/blog/2024/02/01/uasu-an...), to the quieter acts on campus, like where flyers for the petition were kept posted and not simply torn down. This advocacy includes all of you, in having made your support visible by signing the petition. We cannot thank you enough for being here with survivors and showing your support.

665
signatures
595 verified
  1. Francis Marie Leier, Edmonton
  2. Kelly, Edmonton
  3. Joy Love, Student, Edmonton
  4. F. Wiez, University lecturer, Edmonton
  5. Nicola Thompson, Hughschool Student, Ponoka
  6. Chris Chan, Edmonton
  7. Bilal Ghanem, Researcher, UofA, Edmonton
  8. Brooklyn Mankasingh, Edmonton
  9. Natalie Boustead, therapist, Edmonton
  10. Kenzie Gordon, Graduate student, University of Alberta, Edmonton
  11. Alexandre E Da Costa, Associate Professor, University of Alberta, Edmonton
  12. Kahn Lam, Edmonton
  13. Dan Hackborn, graduate student, University of Alberta, Edmonton
  14. Lila Bobby, Child Welfare, not disclosed, Edmonton
  15. Nadia Baheri, Software Consultant, Vancouver
  16. Matthew Guzdial, Assistant Professor, University of Alberta, Edmonton
  17. Brianna, Edmonton
  18. Anon, Alumni, Staff, Edmonton, Edmonton
  19. Esther Dimalanta, Calgary
  20. Madison Nickel, Barista, kerri’s, Edmonton
...
555 more
verified signatures
  1. Zoe wilson, Retail, N/A, Edmonton
  2. Josh Hemingway, Retail, Edmonton
  3. Natalia Roman, Student, University of Alberta, Edmonton
  4. Ashleigh Baylis, Calgary
  5. Katie Mitran, Student, University of Alberta, Edmonton
  6. Chelsea Boos, Edmonton
  7. Angela, Student, University of Alberta, Edmonton
  8. Amaly rahman, MD, University of Alberta, Edmonton
  9. Casi Hutcheon, Student, Edmonton
  10. Mikayla Pettit, Engineering Student, University of Alberta, Edmonton
  11. Braiden Janes, Intern, UofA, Edmonton
  12. Angela Smyth, Tattoo artist, Loveyland studio, Calgary
  13. Katie Bauer, Student, Uofa, Edmonton
  14. JeneayaKimberley Irwin, Student, University of Alberta, Edmonton
  15. Christine Unrau, Student, University of Calgary, Edmonton
  16. Gianna Marsiglio, Student, St. Albert
  17. Sage Kuehn, Student, University of Alberta, Stony Plain
  18. Camille Brookwell, Undergraduate, UofA, Edmonton
  19. Lauren Jenkins, Student, Edmonton
  20. Kaitlyn Manegre, Student, University of Alberta, Edmonton
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