Last summer, in the aftermath of domestic violence charges against a former assistant football coach, Chancellor Philip P. DiStefano announced the formation of a working group to build a comprehensive approach to eliminating structural impediments to addressing sexual misconduct and provide support to those who are impacted.
The resulting Integration Steering Committee chaired by Senior Vice Chancellor and Chief Financial Officer Kelly Fox was charged by the chancellor with presenting recommendations to meet the following six goals:
- Ensure that our nationally recognized Office of Institutional Equity and Compliance (OIEC) be understood by all as the most essential partner to help departments address questions of sexual assault, sexual misconduct and intimate partner abuse and to ensure affected parties are aware of and have access to campus support services.
- Integrate our Department of Intercollegiate Athletics more fully into the fabric of the university.
- Create greater clarity across campus both on the systemwide and campus policies and our prevention and response goals related to sexual misconduct, which includes sexual assault, sexual harassment, sexual exploitation, intimate partner abuse and stalking.
- Develop across the campus a deeper understanding of, and reliance on, the variety of professional services the campus offers that provide care and support to individuals impacted by sexual violence, intimate partner abuse or other damaging behaviors.
- Elevate awareness of our legal team, in addition to OIEC, as the primary resource for leaders and departments seeking advice on interpretation and compliance with policy.
- Ensure that our Strategic Relations and Communications (SRC) team is recognized by leaders and departments as the expert resource on internal and external communication strategy.
The committee has submitted its report and recommendations to Chancellor DiStefano, who has accepted the report and several recommendations and has provided it to CU President Bruce Benson. Chancellor DiStefano thanked all of the committee and subcommittee members for their work.
“I am very pleased by the work the committee has done to ensure that the Office of Institutional Equity and Compliance is successfully understood to be a partner across the campus to address issues of sexual misconduct or discrimination,” DiStefano said. “The Athletics Department, our legal team, SRC and OIEC are working more closely together and across the campus, which I expect will advance even more, thanks to the committee’s work.”
Chancellor DiStefano has accepted the committee’s recommendation for more frequent discrimination and harassment training. Faculty and staff will be required to complete this training every three years, rather than the existing five-year requirement. This will provide more frequent training so the campus has better awareness of current policies. He also accepted a committee recommendation for OIEC to report to Senior Vice Chancellor and Chief Financial Officer Fox now that the work to fully create the department, procedures and policy, and to hire highly qualified staff, is complete. OIEC’s support services, training and investigations will be made available to all units along with the services of the other units under Fox’s direction.
Actions already taken include the following:
- Updating coaches’ contracts to include specific language on the reporting of sexual misconduct and discrimination (which was already university policy for all mandatory reporters, but is now explicit in their contracts).
- New training on our policies for 290 student-athletes and more than 400 employees including Athletics staff, senior university leadership and other departments around the campus.
Further, as part of a systemwide effort, Boulder’s policy subcommittee worked to revise the University of Colorado’s Sexual Misconduct Policy to make clear the roles and responsibilities of all employees. Those revisions are being reviewed by university stakeholders and may be approved by the president for adoption in September.
The committee members will continue their work to further advance the full integration of OIEC’s work into the daily fabric of the campus and for the closer alignment of the Athletics Department with the legal team, SRC and with all areas of the campus.
