Stepping Up

Coalition of Men Tackles Sexual Violence

by Matt Getty

January 2, 2010

Andrew Verrier ’11 discusses gender issues with first-year men in Drayer Hall during a recent Step Up event.

Last spring, when dozens of students donned red, gathered on Britton Plaza with signs reading “We will no longer be silent” and marched to the steps of Old West, Andrew Verrier ’11 took notice. Having long been sensitive to women’s issues as the son of a former Planned Parenthood staff member and women’s-center coordinator, he applauded the bold attempt to raise awareness about sexual violence on college campuses. But it was the negative response of a few men that really caught his attention.

“I heard there were some guys who would drive by and shout stuff or go into the HUB and rip down posters,” he recalls, shaking his head with frustration. “I was like, ‘Why would you do that? You’re just implicating yourself. You’re hurting the community that you’re a part of.’ ”

It was a familiar feeling for Verrier. In the past he would sometimes listen as female friends complained about being mistreated by men and wish he could do something. “It would always really upset me, but I’d always just feel powerless.”

This time Verrier approached Women’s Center Director Susannah Bartlow with a simple question—Are sexism and sexual violence strictly women’s issues, or can men help?

Answering that question was easy for Bartlow, who encouraged Verrier to turn his frustration into leadership. “Based on what I know about how sexual violence works, it comes from—and has bad consequences for—men and women,” she explains. “A lot of people talk about rape and sexual violence as women’s issues, but all the research tells us these things affect both genders.”

Eight months and a lot of e-mails and phone calls later, Verrier is now the president of Step Up, a new organization of men dedicated to building a safer and more equitable campus for women at Dickinson. Thus far he has built a coalition of about 90 men committed to engaging other Dickinson men on topics such as date rape, male privilege and the objectification of women. Besides holding weekly meetings, the group has put up posters detailing sexual-violence statistics and co-sponsored a Union Philosophical Society discussion on “What it Means to be a Man at Dickinson.”

“We want to get the conversation started,” Verrier explains. “We want to get these issues out in the open.”

The work doesn’t end with talk, however. The goal of starting these conversations, Verrier explains, is to empower bystanders who see any mistreatment of women to honor the coalition’s name and “step up” to intervene.

“It’s pretty obvious if you’re in a social situation and you see something going on that shouldn’t be,” says Student Senate President Lee Tankle ’10, one of the first campus leaders Verrier brought on board. “Right now, it’s seen as uncool to step in and ask someone, ‘Are you OK?’ By getting the message out through signs, conversations, debates and discussion, we’re hoping to make that cool.”

To help, Verrier has reached out to a variety of male campus leaders, including Interfraternity Council President Dan Magney ’10 and Vice President Joe Schackman ’10, whose involvement Verrier and Tankle say has been invaluable.

“Andrew has done a remarkable job of building a coalition on this issue, which can be tough for men to talk about,” says the group’s staff advisor Tim Poirier, associate dean of students. “When they’re first presented with it, some men might scratch their heads and say, ‘Why is this an issue? I’m a good guy. I don’t see why this is a problem.’ But Andrew’s done a great job of bringing them into the conversation.”

That has made the group a rarity, says Poirier, pointing out that though there’s a growing national trend of groups addressing sexual violence on college campuses, student-led men’s groups remain uncommon. While Bartlow and Poirier helped Verrier get his idea off the ground by discussing strategies for building a presence on campus and accompanying him to the Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education’s Engaging College Men Conference this summer, both stress that the group’s success stems largely from its grass-roots origins.

“What’s great is that it’s truly student driven,” says Poirier. “When the opportunities to intervene really emerge, it’s going to be at a party on a Saturday night, and there’s obviously not going to be faculty or administrators there, so it’s important that students are the ones taking the lead on this.”

That’s clearly happening at Dickinson and, according to Bartlow and Poirier, it goes beyond Step Up. Student Senate has allocated $5,000 for sexual-violence-prevention programs and Sigma Lambda Beta fraternity recently sponsored a dating-violence and domestic-violence discussion.

Like Bartlow and Poirer, Verrier is happy to see the movement go beyond his weekly Step Up meetings; he’s striving to bring the conversation about sexual violence and gender stereotypes to new social groups on campus.

“I’d like to see all sectors of the campus get involved,” he says, noting that he’s working to engage athletes, whose busy schedules have made outreach a challenge. “I think this is an issue that can bring the entire campus together. … This is just one of those things you know is right, and nobody could convince me otherwise.”