This project at the School of Social Work’s Institute on Domestic Violence & Sexual Assault seeks to understand sexual assault, dating violence, sexual harassment, and stalking crimes at thirteen campuses in The University of Texas System. The CLASE project assesses student experiences with intimate interpersonal violence and the impact of programming, policy, and efforts among student who have experienced violence and those who have not. CLASE also addresses concerns about student safety and compliance by systematically benchmarking student intimate interpersonal violence on the University of Texas System campuses using an empirical, comprehensive, collaborative, and iterative process.
Climate surveys will explore incidence and prevalence of victimization and perpetration, evaluate school efforts to address intimate interpersonal violence, and examine post-assault behavior of students. These surveys will establish compliance with pending federal legislation.
Further analysis will be conducted at four sample campuses to gain additional insight into the goals, concerns, attitudes, and process undertaken by professionals working with victims and accused students. These professionals may include victim service professionals, campus law enforcement, faculty, and staff. The findings from the “deeper dive” into these four diverse campuses will inform further research later in the project at the other nine campuses.
A multi-year cohort study of sexual assault victims and a comparison group of students on the UT Austin campus will be implemented to assess the impact of sexual assault on academic, health, and quality of life variables.
Information gathered from campus climate surveys and cohort data will be analyzed to determine direct, social, and institutional costs associated with sexual assault crimes and other forms of intimate interpersonal violence, campus responses to it, and the impact of those experiences on students’ achievement of their educational and other goals.
Each campus will receive a report of finding, with evidence-based policy and service recommendations localized to the unique needs of the specific campus.