Live blog: Town hall forum on sexual misconduct policies

The event concludes. Overall it was productive and good questions were asked. Collegian reporters are in the process of collecting more information from administrators, and more specific storylines regarding the forum will be available as soon as they are available. Thank you for following along. 

7:54 p.m. -- Fankhauser says that ideally, a climate survey with a large enough response rate would be used to understand what's going on at UR in terms of sexual misconduct, which could lead to policy changes. 

7:50 p.m. -- Landphair says the administration's climate survey was not released because the response rate was deemed too low to be significant. Lewis then jumps in and says the results of that survey must be deemed appropriate for release by the Institutional Review Board. 

7:49 p.m. -- The DoE has already collected information over the past few months, including narratives, statistics, information on cases and other such campus information. 

7:47 p.m. -- Landphair says the DoE will likely respond with insight on improvements for UR's policies after the department's visit. 

7:45 p.m. -- Landphair is adamant that the DoE's visit did not affect the agenda for tonight's forum at all. 

7:43 p.m. -- Landphair also announces the Department of Education's visit to campus on Tuesday, March 31. She says the visit is a result of a complaint that was filed regarding UR's process in dealing with sexual misconduct. 

7:42 p.m. -- Landphair stands up to address the importance of UR being small, because the students can talk to each other and educate each other fairly easily. "If there's something going on, we will respond," she says. 

7:37 p.m. -- Curry goes on to share her enthusiasm regarding the Spiders for Spiders training, and the momentum the program has picked up. There is a training session this Friday.

7:34 p.m. -- Curry mentions annual events that occur to help prevention. She says athletics are trying to help out with the White House's "It's On Us" campaign, which will occur from this weekend until the weekend after. Some events she mentions at Richmond are Take Back the Night, Scope, Spiders for Spiders training, and a Start By Believing campaign that will occur on April 21 throughout the entire city of Richmond. 

7:31 p.m. -- Beth Curry comes up to talk about her education and prevention work. She says a "sexual assault prevention coordinating committee" was put into place last Spring in order to: reduce the number of students experiencing sexual assault, and increase the help-seeking of victims. 

7:28 p.m. -- How does UR compare with other schools in terms of helping the LGBTQ community with sexual assault? Lewis says UR has been contacted by other Virginia schools asking for help with policies. Overall, he says we offer more resources than most peer institutions and admission competitors.

7:23 p.m. -- A student asks Ted Lewis about consent and the LGBTQ community. He says UR was ahead of the times because it included LGBTQ in policies before the federal or state government required it. He also says some policy stuff is specifically geared toward males being assaulted, specifically by other men. He mentions that this can lead to homophobia if a heterosexual male is assaulted by another male. He names an exhaustive list of people working at UR that have training regarding how to handle sexual misconduct in the LGBTQ community. 

7:18 p.m. -- A student asks about the URPD investigation process, and Simonds responds by saying URPD and Title IX investigations are completely separate processes. Another student asks what training Richmond staff receive, and how it compares to URPD training. 

Fanhauser says Richmond staff receive investigator trainings that focus on things like victimization, policy, procedure, and Title IX issues among other things. She says they are trained "over and over again," with five or more in-person trainings annually. They also participate in frequent webinars and interaction with other campuses.

She also points out that Title IX investigations are civil rights investigations, not criminal investigations like police do. For civil rights cases, a burden of proof is preponderance of evidence, while for not beyond a reasonable doubt. 

7:16 p.m. -- Danny Heifetz of The Collegian asks Fankhauser what happens after she refers a case to the appropriate dean, whether it be Patrick Benner of RC or Charm Bullard of WC. 

7:12 p.m. -- Fankhauser explains that when a sexual misconduct is reported, an investigation is held. If sufficient evidence is found, the Title IX office will pass the information on, but will remain involved in the process the entire time. She explains that RAs are required to report, and other students are encouraged to report but not required. An anonymous reporting form is available on the sexual misconduct section of Richmond's school website. 

7:10 p.m. -- Fankhauser continues, and no one poses any questions about what she has said so far. She encourages everyone and anyone to report anything to the Title IX office, even if there is no evidence or single incident. "We'll talk to you about resources that are available to your friend and to you," she says. 

7:07 p.m. -- Fankhauser addresses the crowd. She says the new policy is not too different, but meets new legislative requirements. The new policy includes FAQs and acknowledges that men are also victims of sexual misconduct. 

Some definitions have changed or been added to the policy, including stalking, dating violence and domestic violence. 

7:04 p.m. -- Landphair asks her guest contributors to introduce themselves. Those is attendance include: Beth Simonds of URPD, Ted Lewis of Common Ground, Beth Curry of Westhampton College and Kerry Fankhauser of the Title IX office. 

7:02 p.m. -- Westhampton College Dean Juliette Landphair addresses the crowd to begin the discussion. She says the goal of the forum is to share policy changes with students, then to hear feedback and questions regarding policy changes. 

We are about 20 minutes away from the beginning of tonight's Town Hall forum. Stay tuned for updates  about what is said throughout the meeting.