Eastern leaders spoke openly on sexual assault issues on campuses through a panel discussion, “It’s On Us,” Tuesday.

“It’s On Us,” a national campaign to promote awareness of sexual assaults on college campuses around the country, was adopted on Eastern’s campus through student government.

Reginald Thedford, the student body president, said he wanted to start the campaign at Eastern. He said last semester he had partnered with the Health Education and Resources Center and the Sexual Prevention team in order to create a video in order to help launch the campaign.

“It’s a national campaign that was launched by the White House in partnership with Generation Progress,” Thedford said. “What they did was they challenged student body presidents and student governments across the nation, and I felt that this was an issue that EIU could participate in.”

Thedford said studies have shown one in five women are sexually assaulted where as one in sixteen men are sexually assaulted. Only five percent of these cases are reported on college campuses.

“The idea of this campaign is to bridge that gap as well as educate the students, educate administration on ways we can improve the policies here at EIU,” Thedford said. “As well as taking a stand against sexual assault and being more than a bystander.”

The panel opened with a video called “It Happened Here,” a documentary highlighting five female students who were sexually assaulted on their college campuses and how they handled the situation.

The students were from Vanderbilt University, University of Connecticut, and Amherst College. The video pointed out less than 20 percent of campus assaults is reported, and 85 percent of the assaults are committed by an acquaintance of the victim.

After the video was shown, Thedford introduced the panel members Heather Webb, the Deputy Title IX coordinator, Lindsay Wilson, a counselor from the Counseling center, Marlene Acosta, a senior sociology major, Melany Zwilling, the Sexual Health Education Coordinator, and Nathan Gayheart, Interfraternity Council president.

Some members in the audience commented on how sexual assault victims were portrayed in the media. They said the media does not take it seriously when it happens on college campuses.

In the video, there were instances shown where the media had place some blame on the victims, whether they were drinking too much, the clothes they were wearing, and even some cases where the media called the rape into question.

“This is a story about five women, but I think it’s important to keep in mind that men can also be victimized as well,” Webb said. “When we talk about this as a campus community, we need to keep that in mind about services for all students, not just necessarily for women.”

Some of the resources Eastern provides include the Sexual Assault Counseling and Information Services, the Counseling Center, and HOPE, the Coalition Against Domestic Violence.

“Victimization can happen to anyone, regardless of gender,” Wilson said. “I was definitely disturbed with hearing how some of the cases were handled or not handled.”

At the conclusion of the panel, Thedford said he thought panel was successful.

“I think it was informative, very educational and I think it brought awareness to a lot of students here, male and female,” Thedford said. “That was the idea for it, and also it brought back one of the goals I wanted to have is that students can let administration know or some of the resources how they can make their resources more available.”

Thedford said schools such as Washington University, St. Louis Mo., and the University of Oregon are having pledge drives, and Ohio State University is going through some title IX reforms.

“The next step I’m going to get in contact with a representative from a national campus leadership council,” Thedford said. “I wanted to create a brochure so that we can hand those out to students, because I think that one of the advantages we have as student government is that we are students.”

Luis Martinez can be reached at 581-2812 or at lpmartinez@eiu.edu.