Hello all! My name is Kristin Canan, and I am passionately committed
to ending interpersonal violence around the world! Are you willing to partner
with me on this mission?
So how, you ask, do we go about ending such a huge epidemic
like interpersonal violence? I believe it starts by each of us working to end
violence in our own communities.
For me, my community is the University of Denver (DU). I am
currently a graduate student at the University of Denver’s Graduate School of
Social Work, and I am set to graduate this June with my Masters Degree in
Social Work and an Interpersonal Trauma Studies Certification. I am loving the
University community I am part of, but like many college students around the
nation, I have continuously been feeling and seeing the devastating effects of
my own campus community perpetuating and tolerating the cycle of violence,
specifically sexual assault, dating/domestic violence, stalking, and
harassment. Having a background in campus education and advocacy, sexual
assault victim advocacy, domestic violence victim advocacy, social justice
programming, and victim crisis responding, strongly encouraged me to get
involved in initiating change at DU. I wasn’t exactly sure what that change was
going to look like but I eventually stumbled upon an office on campus dedicated
to prevention, education, and support surrounding gender-based violence: the
Center for Advocacy, Prevention, and Education (CAPE).
After getting involved with the one office we have on campus dedicated to advocacy, support, and
prevention for interpersonal violence issues, which is staffed with one staff member who splits her time between
the CAPE office as Program Director and the Health and Counseling Center as a Senior Staff Psychologist, I was further exposed to where vast gaps exist on DU’s campus in relation to resources for
advocacy, support, prevention, and education. I decided I had to do more to
change the entire campus culture.
I started working with the CAPE office’s prevention,
education, and programming efforts, but I was finding myself feeling like I
still had limited influence over what I saw as the biggest issue in the
perpetuation of interpersonal violence: the campus system and culture that
tolerates and sometimes encourages behavior that leads to interpersonal violence,
mostly through inaction and ignorance (whether that be administration,
students, faculty, staff, etc.). I struggled with the limitations of one
person’s influence; how could I make the changes I saw were necessary as one
person?
During my involvement with the CAPE office this past spring,
I was presented with what seemed to be the perfect opportunity to make the
impactful difference at DU I had been craving. Ashley Olson, who is one of my
former supervisors, mentors, and a very close friend of mine from my undergrad
at University of Wisconsin-River Falls who has taught me most of what I know
about advocacy, social action, and social justice, emailed me an opportunity I
couldn’t pass up. This opportunity was through Futures Without Violence (formerly
Family Violence Prevention Fund), and it brought graduate students together
from across the nation to create and implement plans for campus development and
violence prevention specifically surrounding sexual assault, dating/domestic
violence, and reproductive coercion knowing these are extremely prevalent
issues on college campuses. I immediately created a campus plan, filled out the
application, and anxiously waited to hear from Futures Without Violence about
the Campus Leadership Fellow position.
I am very honored (and excited) to say that I am one of
twelve incredibly privileged graduate students chosen across the nation who has
the opportunity to represent Futures Without Violence as a Campus Leadership
Fellow over this academic year developing and implementing programming,
resources, curricula, policy, prevention initiatives, and/or trainings on our
respective campuses to contribute to a future without violence, specifically
surrounding sexual assault, dating/domestic violence, and reproductive coercion.
Students from Harvard Medical School, Boston University, Simmons College,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill Medical School, University of Kentucky, St. Louis University, University
of Denver, University of New Mexico, and University of California-Berkeley have
been tasked with the continuously fought, uphill battle of working towards
creating safer communities. We come from all different backgrounds and are
currently studying a variety of subjects including medicine, anthropology,
social work, counseling, and public health, but we all have one common passion
that draws us together: we are fiercely dedicated to ending interpersonal
violence.
Over the next year, we will all implement personalized plans
and projects on our respective campuses. We will have successes, frustrations,
and struggles. We will make changes, and we may fall short on some of our
goals. Whatever the outcomes may be, we hope that we can initiate changes on
campuses around the nation and create sustainable programs that can be adapted
to other communities.
We invite you to follow our journey throughout the next
year: learn with us, celebrate with us, get frustrated with us, and please take
the opportunity to adapt what we are doing to make changes in your own
respective communities.
Changing an entire campus culture is a pretty tall order, but I am dedicated to creating sustainable change at DU to foster a safer community and a more enjoyable experience for all current and future students, faculty, and staff.
So here’s to an amazing, eventful, sometimes stressful,
life-changing year to come!
Cheers to all of our future adventures and to all of you who
will be following and supporting me over the next year! I cannot thank you
enough!
With much gratitude and best wishes,
Kristin Canan
Futures Without Violence Campus Leadership Fellow
University of Denver
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| Futures Without Violence Campus Leadership Fellows from left to right: Gina Capra, Kristin Canan, Ariel Jones, Sara Skavroneck, Alishka Abioye, Nisha Verma, Angela Catena, Colin Gallant, Natalia Truszczynski, Jane Pomeroy, and Mitali Thakor; Missing: Neha Deshpande |
