Policy distrust

You say all these things: “It will be investigated”, “We will report to you, etc.,” but within what timeframe? Otherwise, it can drag on for six months. I’ve heard numerous stories about people graduating and…

It’s great that they say they will give you counselling, but what happens when it is faculty, and you do not want to set foot on campus anymore, and you’ve left university? What happens when…

You have to dig through a bunch of irrelevant pages on the Saint Mary’s website to actually find the sexual violence policy. Um, and then that is basically it; there are no supporting documents around…

There is relevance to students ’cause it does give them a little bit of insight into what’s covered under it and whom they can go to, to discuss their options. Um, but it doesn’t really…

There’s a lot of legal mumbo jumbo which might not be understandable for people who maybe have a language barrier.[…] And because it’s just so long, like, a lot of people want to find the…

The other thing I would wonder about is, what is the plan to make sure that it continues to be relevant? […]. I would think that there – or I would hope that there is…

My first one is, who creates the policy? Um, there’s been a lot of debate at Saint Mary’s about who should actually be creating the policy and like, is this group pre-made? Does it pop…

Participant 1: I think it definitely reflects more of an institutional concern, like we discussed before, the policy is not really great for accessibility or understanding for students, especially a student in crisis. Just in…

Participant 1: [Laughs] The sexual violence response team creates the policy, and the sexual violence response team also happens to be the people that enforce the policy. Um, so, it’s bad- you can’t write the…

[Since] 1990, the entire world has changed a our policy has not. Comparing it to even to other schools, like, Dalhousie and St. FX, like, their policies are quite expansive and cover a lot of…