The huge social atmosphere of a university creates an environment where people from all over the world can interact and develop relationships. 

Programs designed to prevent, recognize and defeat the bad from taking a toll on the college experience counter the negative aspects of college campus. 

The Red Flag Campaign is a national initiative started by the Virginia Sexual and Domestic Violence Action Alliance and localized by Eastern’s Sexual Assault Prevention Task Force designed to raise awareness of relationship issues, teach peers how to spot them in each other’s relationships and our own alike and encourage peers to speak up when a ‘red flag’ is spotted. 

Launching the campaign for the Eastern’s campus is Katie McCarthy, the assistant director of the Counseling Center, bringing the school into a fold of more than 100 campuses running the program nationwide. 

“We were looking to get more social marketing on campus to highlight issues around healthy relationships and the possibilities of dating violence,” McCarthy said. 

She said the Sexual Assault Prevention Task Force on campus involves the counseling center, faculty members, Student Affairs, Sexual Assault Counseling and Information Service, community members, University Police Department and the Charleston Police Department.

“We’re trying to raise the issue on campus and draw more attention to it,” McCarthy said. “We all chipped in together to bring it here.”

McCarthy said the dates were specifically selected to give information to students about the red flags of dating violence.

“The more we can catch potential risk factors earlier on, the healthier all of our relationships will be,” she said. “It’s also about recognizing these flags in your friends’ relationships and finding ways to express your concern to them.”

The last campaign event will run from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. on April 23 with volunteers distributing fliers across campus. 

The fliers will highlight the defining signals of potential relationship problems and how to counter them.

Donna Hudson, a SACIS representative for the Red Flag Campaign, said the campaign was so important that they decided to do it twice. 

“April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month so we wanted to do something that raised awareness on more than one day,” Hudson said.

Hudson said she saw a spark of interest in students while participating in the campaign.

“People seemed to be reading what we were handing out to them,” she said. “I even engaged in some conversations with a few students who wanted to talk a little bit about the red flags and unhealthy relationships.”

She said she hopes the campaign encourages people to think about their personal relationships. 

“We’re hoping that even if people don’t openly talk to us a lot about what’s going on in their relationships, they are taking the information in and considering whether their own relationships would raise any red flags,” Hudson said.

McCarthy said the prevention of sexual assault through awareness and education is the primary goal for the event.

“In relationships that aren’t necessarily violent, they can be healthier if you realize that maybe if I’m being really jealous, that’s not helpful to a relationship,” McCarthy said. “You can find a different way to express concern, so there are good reminders for everybody.”

 Joshua Bryant can be reached at 581-2812 or jpbryant@eiu.edu.