WOMEN'S CENTER RECEIVES GRANT TO HELP MEN END VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN

This fall's Sexual Assault Awareness Week will feature an additional program thanks to Rebecca Fogerty, assistant director of the Women's Center at Old Dominion University who was recently awarded a $2,303 grant from the Virginia Department of Health to implement the project "Men's Work: The Role of Men in Decreasing Campus Violence Against Women."

"Confronting the issue of men's violence against women has long been regarded as important on college campuses," said Fogerty, "but because violence against women is often viewed as just a women's problem, programming and educational efforts have traditionally focused on women."

While the Women's Center has traditionally included an event during Sexual Assault Awareness Week geared towards men, this grant will enable the center to do more including bringing John Foubert, assistant professor of higher education at William and Mary and president of NO MORE, the National Organization of Men's Outreach for Rape Education to the university to give the keynote address. He will also conduct workshops for students, faculty and staff tackling rape myths, discussing the role of consent and detailing what a man can do if a woman they know is assaulted.

Fogerty has begun purchasing videos and guidebooks targeted specifically to men to add to the center's resource library. Information from examining rape culture to addressing the connection between masculinity and men's violence will be available in the library, on the Web site at http://studentservices.odu.edu/wc and in handouts given out during the week.

"We have a lot of conscious men on this campus and I think there's going to be a huge response from ODU men for this event," she said.