Campus Violence and Resources
Resources on the University of Massachusetts Campus that victims of assault can turn to are official University offices, Everywoman’s Center events, and survivors who are willing to speak out.
Campus Violence Victim Rights Forum video
A Victim of Sexual Assault Shares Her Story
by Maura Anderson, Caitlin Quinn, Alex Holden
A strong, composed, confident young woman might not be the first image that comes to mind when you think of a victim of sexual assault. But Cait, a 23-year-old graduate student at the University of Massachusetts Amherst who wished to be identified only by her nickname, is proof that victims can find a way to move on and regain their self-confidence.
Cait was an undergraduate student at UMass when she was sexually assaulted. She was on her way home from a party in her hometown over winter break when the incident occurred. Many of the people at the party were drinking alcohol and smoking marijuana, and Cait was under the influence.
With the end of the night approaching, Cait caught a ride home with one of her best friends who had designated himself the driver for the night. He had not been drinking or smoking. Cait, on the other hand, was highly intoxicated, to the point where she blacked out.
“The last thing I remember was being in the back seat [of the car]. I don’t remember anything else,” she said.
The next day, Cait could not remember much of the night before. But in a conversation over an instant messenger with the friend who had driven her home, she began to put the pieces back together.
The two had been friends for years, and while Cait was not interested in anything besides friendship with him, he had had a crush on her and tried to pursue dating her multiple times, Cait said.
Cait recalled that when she asked this friend what had happened the night before, he responded, “We had a milestone in our relationship. Don’t you remember? We had sex last night.”
In her words, Cait was shocked, horrified, and upset. “The last thing I said to him was, ‘I can’t believe you did this. Good-bye.’ And I never talked to him again,” she said.
It wasn’t until a month later that she started talking to people about what happened and it took her much longer to tell their mutual friends. She did not go to University Health Services or the UMass Police Department for help. She was petrified that if she went to UHS, her visit would show up on her insurance bill, notifying her parents. To this day, Cait’s family does not know about her sexual assault.
Cait felt that a lot of helpful resources were available to her, and for a while she turned to her sorority, which she said was a great network of female support. She also visited the Everywoman’s Center, which provided counseling and the emotional support she needed without any payment that could show up on her insurance bill.
It took years for Cait to regain her self-confidence and move past the incident – and those years were marked by a struggle to “reclaim her body.” As she explained, survivors of sexual assault generally go down one of two paths – they either become very conservative about sexual relations, or they “sleep around a lot.” Cait had many one-night stands in an attempt to distance herself from the assault, but eventually, she was able to open up emotionally once again.
Cait met her current boyfriend two years after the incident, and this has been her first positive, healthy sexual relationship since being assaulted. She said that being in a healthy relationship has helped her forget the assault and her unhealthy sexual activity afterward. Her healing was also due in large part to supportive friends and resources on campus that she could turn to.
The secret, she said, was finding “something to do in your life that makes you not think about it all the time.” She got involved in the Vagina Monologues in her sophomore year, and has been performing in it ever since.
“Theater is not the main goal,” Cait said. The main purpose of the Vagina Monologues is healing. “It was like group therapy [for me].”
Cait said that she was fortunate because she knew what help that was available to her, and she used that support to become a stronger person. “Know your campus, policies, and mental health services,” she said.
“And don’t be afraid to get in peoples’ faces. Don’t be afraid to get mad at people when they make jokes about rape,” she said, which has happened among her friends. “If they call you a bitch, that’s their problem, their ego.”
Cait has some advice for anyone who finds that they have been sexually assaulted. “Try to talk to as many people as you can, go to Everywoman’s Center or friends.” And most importantly, she said, “find something to connect to that can make you move on.”
Brad Tuttle shares the Five Why’s of a magazine pitch
Brad Tuttle, contributing editor for Budget Travel, spoke to University of Massachusetts Amherst journalism students on April 1 about how to break into magazine writing. He described five questions that all writers must be able to answer for a successful pitch to a magazine editor, which Tuttle called the “Five Why’s.”
Why 1: Why this story?
Tuttle used this “Why” to explain the importance of the story’s content. “In your pitch, you want to make a case for there being an actual story,” he said. Mr. Tuttle knows—especially through his travel writing expertise—that there are many overdone, overused, generic stories, which do not get the approval of editors.
Tuttle furthered his explanation by giving students his theory of how to convince an editor of why a particular story is worth their time. “Show, don’t tell—a pitch is a mix of showing the editor and telling as well. You need to show a little bit of how the story will be put together,” he said. He mentioned that journalism students are always taught to show with their writing, but in this case, telling is also equally important to make that successful pitch.
Why 2: Why this publication?
As a potential writer for a specific magazine, budding journalists must know exactly what they are getting themselves into. For example, Tuttle said it is essential know what kinds of articles the magazine wrote in the past year—you don’t want to pitch an idea that has already been done. He went as far as saying if a writer pitches an old idea, the company will probably ignore them in the future, because, “editors care deeply about their publication, so if you are showing them that you don’t care enough to read it, then it’s saying something,” he said.
He also added, “It’s a good idea to try and draw similarities between what you do and what the publication does.”
Why 3: Why now?
A successful magazine story pitch should also address this question, which directly relates to the timeliness of the article. For example, what is the significance of doing the article in December as opposed to March? Tuttle only briefly talked about the third “Why,” simply articulating his main point of how to answer the question. He said, “If you can validate, ‘this is the trend here, and this is why we need to do it now.”’
Why 4: Why this particular format?
This question is used to justify the use of either text, video or sound. Tuttle said that taking this detail of the story into consideration “demonstrates to them that you are thinking about these things. You appreciate what the magazine does—you have a vision for what’s going on.” He said that a detailed pitch helps “sell them on your idea” and shows that you care about the story.
However, he warned that, “editors are always going to bring their own ideas to the table. Speaking from experience, they tend to like their own ideas best,”
Why 5: Why you?
What makes you qualified to write about this particular story? Why are you a better choice than someone else? As Tuttle explained, it is difficult for a writer just breaking into the industry to sufficiently be able to answer this question. However, he did give one scenario for best approaching this difficult question. Journalists who actually have a great story to pitch should do so with a lot of show. The best way to show, in this case, is to actually write much of the piece for the editor.
“Just write—it’s not an easy thing to do,” he said, “A lot of the reporting you do should be before you put the pitch together.”
With all of these ideas in mind, Mr. Tuttle laid the groundwork for a successful pitch and eventual success in the magazine writing industry. He would know, having built his knowledge throughout and extensive writing career. Currently a blogger for Time.com, he wrote a post on April 7 addressing freelance writing, a topic similar to that of his speech at UMass. Tuttle’s freelance writing has appeared in major publications including the New York Times, Newsweek, Newsday and American History, according to Time.com.
Tuttle is also currently a contributing editor of Budget Travel, where he previously was a staff writer for six years. He also spent time as a senior editor for Wondertime, a parenting magazine owned by Disney. Expanding his career beyond the magazine industry, Tuttle published his first book, The Ellis Island Collection: Artifacts from the Immigrant Experience, in 2004 and his second, How Newark Became Newark: The Rise, Fall, and Rebirth of an American City, was released in 2009. According to his website, he is a graduate of the Columbia School of Journalism.
GenEd Q&A Multimedia
Students react to changing General Education requirements at UMass.
Some states find burdens in health law – News Package
The New York Times did a news package on Friday about how states will fare when specific provisions in the new health reform law are enacted. The written piece gave a detailed account of how Louisiana, California, Texas, Massachusetts, and other states’ budgets will be affected by health care reform.
Louisiana, for instance, runs a charity hospital system which will be in trouble when, as the law requires, the federal government reduces the amount of money given to hospitals that treat uninsured patients. These charity hospitals depend on that money to continue treating uninsured patients, but, as the article goes on to explain, “some of that could be offset by in the increase in insured patients.”
Texas and California, the states with the biggest population of uninsured Americans, will see their costs rise significantly – California projects the increased burden on Medicaid could cost the state $500 million a year. And while these two states will see the most dramatic rise in insured Americans, that insurance comes at a cost to the states.
The New York Times accompanied the written piece with a graphic showing how Medicaid will impact the country state by state. The map shows on one side circles for each state that vary in size depending on how many uninsured people there are. On the other side, it shows the “portion of uninsured with income who would qualify for Medicaid in 2014,” with darker shaded states being those who would face the higher burden.
This is a very effective graphic that highlights the important parts of the written article, synthesizing complicated information into an easy-to-understand map. It is also really interesting to see, on the right side, the geographic distribution of uninsured Americans who will qualify for Medicaid. The maps show visually not just some of the information in the article, but goes beyond the article to give a bigger picture of how one part of the health care reform – increases in people eligible for Medicaid – will affect each state.
Julie Loves Hockey: Why you can’t judge a book by its cover
Julie Robenhymer, a sports journalist and UMass alumna, may have perfectly bouncy, shampoo-commercial blonde locks, and wear the title of former Miss New Jersey, but don’t brush her off based just on that. And yes, she does get those occasional “trolls,” as she describes, who comment on her journalistic work by saying she should “wear more eye shadow,” but she is confident in her ability to do her job: report stats and analyses for the “above-average hockey fan.”
Robenhymer works for hockeybuzz.com, and contributes by writing blogs and recording audio and videos of her analyses of the world of hockey. She loves her job and gets the chance to travel all over the country. She is passionate about hockey, practically glowing when she talks about her job, but working for hockeybuzz was not her original career plan.
She majored in journalism at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and got her first internship between her freshman and sophomore year. When she asked her internship coordinator for help finding an internship, he said she would never land an internship so early in her college career. Instead of giving up and waiting another year or two, she went out on her own, got the internship, and then came back to talk to her advisor. When he said, again, that he would not help her find an internship, she sure showed him. Robenhymer already got the internship. “I just need you to sign the papers so I can get credit,” she said.
After she graduated college, she went on to own her own dress shop, and competed for and won the title of Miss New Jersey. When she was approached about the job at hockeybuzz, she was originally not interested. She had emailed back and forth with one of the writers for the site, and he liked her emails so much he tried to convince her to become a writer for them. He said her knowledge of hockey and way with words would be a perfect fit for their website. She turned the offer down many times before she finally agreed to have lunch with some of the employees. She changed her mind and found the job to be everything she was interested in and wanted to do.
Self-described as “sassy,” Robenhymer works hard to preserve the brand she has created for herself. She decided on the name “Julie Loves Hockey,” because it’s easy to remember and uses her real name. If she eventually leaves hockeybuzz for a similar job elsewhere, she can take her brand and her fans with her. One thing is for sure: this driven young woman will go far.
Weather Story
Recent storms that blanketed much of the United States in snow have provided ammunition for global warming skeptics. But scientists argue these storms do not provide enough evidence to tell.
Two storms pounded the northeast in early February within a week of each other, causing schools, businesses and even the federal government to shut down. From Washington D.C. to New York, the snowstorms secured winter 2009-10 as the snowiest winter ever on record.
In Philadelphia, the previous yearly snow record was 65.6 inches, according to an article by the Associated Press. These storms dropped a combined 40 inches on the city, bringing the year’s total to 70.3 inches.
The Pennsylvania National Guard was called in to distribute food and blankets to stranded travelers in the state, and Governor Ed Rendell advised residents to stay home. “You will risk your life and, potentially, the lives of others if you get stuck on highways or any road,” he said. The last storm left 30,000 people in western Pennsylvania without power, according to an article by the Associated Press.
In Washington, D.C., the federal government shut down for four days, beating the previous three-day record in January 1996, according to an article by The New York Times. In the winter of 1995-96, storms dumped a total of 54.4 inches on the Washington area, but this winter beats that record with 54.9 inches so far.
Some claim this winter’s massive snow record proves global warming is a hoax. Senator Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) took advantage of the snowstorm to tweet, “It’s going to keep snowing in DC until Al Gore cries ‘uncle,’” according to an article by The Hill, and other conservatives argued the same.
An editorial in the Washington Times also argued the snowstorms prove global warming false, saying, “Those who value freedom should thank Mother Nature for her sense of humor, undermining the case for global warming one flake at a time.”
In response to these claims, Dylan Ratigan of MSNBC argued that these “’Snowpocalypses’ that have been going through D.C. and other weather events are precisely what climate scientists have been predicting, fearing, and anticipating because of global warming.”
Ratigan said that the snowstorms could, if anything, be used as evidence of climate change.
In some cases, according to Scientific American, global warming can lead to increased evaporation and precipitation, and therefore, more snowfall. But overall, scientists say, one snowstorm or even one year is not enough to indicate whether global warming is at work.
“There is climate change, but I am not convinced that man is the sole cause. That is the reason for change in the weather patterns. Carbon dioxide (CO2) is one green house gas and is not necessarily a bad thing. Without the Greenhouse Effect, earth wouldn’t be habitable,” said Professor Heath Hatch of the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
Climate Paleontology, the science which studies weather patterns, changes in climate, and weather predictions, is becoming more exact by being able to build more specific models of atmospheric environments. But, according to Hatch, there are many still variables which make studying weather patterns difficult.
“The end of the world is not going to be caused by global warming,” said Hatch. “However, if you live in a hotspot, I have no sympathy for you… People need to be more prepared.”
FAQ: Swine Flu
1. Who needs to worry about swine flu?
Everyone who hasn’t been vaccinated should get vaccinated, according to the Centers for Disease Control, including ages 65 and older, because while this age group has less of a chance of getting sick, the complications from H1N1 can be much worse for them. High-risk groups are also highly encouraged to get vaccinated. Those groups include:
- Pregnant women
- Those living in a household with young children
- Emergency personnel
- Adults and children ages 24 and younger
- Individuals with underlying conditions such as asthma, respiratory illnesses, or compromised immune systems
2. Where can I go to get vaccinated?
Some states have convenient look-up functions for finding local flu vaccine supplies on their websites, such as New Hampshire and Massachusetts. Talk to your primary care physician first and see if they can administer the vaccine, or check out your State Department’s public health website for more information.
3. What are the symptoms of swine flu?
The symptoms are very similar to that of seasonal flu, and include a fever, sore throat, cough, headache, body aches, chills, fatigue, and runny or stuffy nose. You may not be able to tell whether you have swine flu or seasonal flu unless you get a laboratory test done, but vomiting and diarrhea usually indicate the presence of swine flu rather than seasonal flu. Swine flu can also cause complications, such as pneumonia, worsening heart disease or asthma, or respiratory failure.
4. When should I go to the doctor?
Fox News recommends going to the doctor if you experience any “shortness of breath, chest pain or pressure, confusion or seizures, persistent vomiting or inability to hold down liquids, or bluish lips.” If you’re not sure, call your doctor and ask. You can also take this test on the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services website to see what you should do.
5. Why should I care about swine flu? It’s not in the news anymore.
Swine flu is still in circulation, and despite the fact that most Americans no longer consider it a threat, it is still out there. H1N1 has killed a total of 11,000 Americans since it appeared, and nine children in the last week of January 2010 alone, according to Reuters. Compounding that is the possibility of another wave of H1N1 late winter or early spring, according to an article by the Washington Post.
Maura Anderson 