The Office of Institutional Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (OIDEI) will assume responsibility of the Office of Sexual Assault Prevention and Response (SAPR). President of the College Maud S. Mandel and senior staff made the decision last spring and announced it to affected staff on Sept. 12.
SAPR, which organizes intimate violence prevention workshops and provides confidential support for students, previously fell under the purview of the Prevention, Education, and Advocacy in Community (PEACe) Office. Once under OIDEI, SAPR will also be renamed the Office of Intimate Violence Prevention and Response (OIVPR).
Dean of the College Gretchen Long currently oversees PEACe and thus SAPR. After the change, OIVPR and the Title IX office will both report to Vice President for Institutional Diversity, Equity, and Inlcusion Leticia S.E. Haynes ’99.
The restructuring will help ensure that the College’s solutions to sexual harassment and violence are “holistic and well-integrated,” Mandel wrote to the Record.
“Given OIDEI’s strengths at the intersection of student advocacy and compliance, I concluded, after consultation with key senior staff, that moving the OIVPR team into OIDEI would support this coordination and help us address the types of concerns that people have raised,” she wrote.
In her email, Mandel also added that a search is underway for a deputy Title IX coordinator, a new position approved last semester as part of the 2024-2025 budget.
Violence Prevention Coordinator Riley Kavanagh, the sole staff member of SAPR, resigned from her position on Sept. 19 and will leave the College on Nov. 1.
Kavanagh attributed her departure to the delay in hiring a replacement for Meg Bossong ’05, who previously led PEACe and left the College in May, she wrote in an email to the Record.
The College will hire new staff members to fill the open positions in the reorganized OIVPR office. The only remaining staff member of the PEACe office will be Assistant Director for Health Education Laini Sporbert. Sporbert is additionally serving as interim director of the PEACe office following Bossong’s departure. OIVPR’s reassignment under OIDEI will take effect once Bossong’s replacement is hired.
“The College had notice since January that Meg was leaving in May,” Kavanagh wrote. “Our office has not had a director in four months, and the job has not been posted yet.”
“I did not feel the prevention and response work was being supported in the way that was needed,” Kavanagh wrote.
The College’s handling of sexual assault response has faced scrutiny in recent weeks. Two students have filed complaints with the Department of Education alleging that the College’s Title IX office violated the Clery Act and jeopardized their safety, the Record reported on Sept. 18, though decisions about the restructuring came before such complaints were made public.
