By Regine Tomlin, Contributing Writer
“Susquehanna is home,” said Christiana Paradis, 2011 Susquehanna alumna and a professor of women’s studies. She is excited to start her new position as Department of Justice Office on Violence Against Women Program Coordinator this semester.
Paradis spent the last 6 years in the sexual violence field at a local organization working in prevention and working with victims, “When the position was posted I was pretty excited because it is very similar to what I was doing, but it allowed me to be on campus full time, working with students. I really enjoy working with students,” Paradis said.
Paradis plans to work towards making changes happen on campus by organizing the Coordinating Community Response team, or the CCR team. The CCR team is a group made up of on-campus and off-campus individuals with the goal of coming together monthly to review services that the campus provides to survivors and the prevention efforts in place.
Some of the off-campus partners joining the CCR team will be the chief of Selinsgrove police department, the district attorney’s office, and one of the sexual assault nurses of the Evangelicals Hospital.
Paradis describes the CCR team as a unified friend across campus focusing around issues of domestic violence, sexual violence and stalking.
Paradis is also going to be looking at implementing a more thorough, mandatory sexual and domestic violence prevention program for freshmen orientation.
“So, all incoming students will have to be trained. We do some training on that already but there are some gaps we can fill,” Paradis said. She also clarified that all public safety officers on campus are trained on how to handle sexual violence and stalking. The conduct board and judicial board will go through some additional training as well, regarding those issues.
Recently, Susquehanna applied and recieved a grant from the Department of Justice. This grant will be helping to fund the new position. With the grant that Susquehanna received, Paradis will be coordinating all the new activities.
Unlike the Title IX area, Paradis role focuses more on the prevention and education around investigations. While Barbara Johnson, Title IX coordinator, handles the investigation processes.
Paradis deemed it important to meet and educate students about the various programs and resources for anyone dealing with issues of domestic violence, sexual violence and stalking.
So far, she has been visiting student organized clubs including photography club, SGA, GSA, WomenSpeak, and a few others, “I’m trying to get around to as many organizations on campus, so that people can see who I am and what I’m doing.”
“I just want to encourage students to reach out,” Paradis said.
