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When Abigail Tick began her freshman year in fall 2018 at Syracuse University, Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court confirmation hearings were in full swing. After multiple allegations of sexual assault and misconduct perpetrated by Kavanaugh surfaced, including an allegation of assault at a high school party, a larger conversation developed around the prevalence of sexual violence in social settings among young people.

“There was just a lot of dialogue on centering survivors and supporting survivors at that time, and so I think that’s what really kind of pulled me into (Callisto),” Tick said.

Callisto — currently on 17 campuses across the United States, including SU — is an online support and resource program for survivors of sexual assault. Jess Ladd established Callisto in 2011, and the organization launched its SU chapter last semester after former Student Association president Justine Hastings worked to bring it to campus.

In a typical year, colleges grapple with the “red zone,” the time from the start of the fall semester to the start of Thanksgiving break when statistically, over 50% of campus sexual assault incidents occur. Sarayfah Bolling, the assistant director of campus engagement at Callisto, attributes the trend to a combination of factors: the excitement of returning to campus, the start of athletic seasons and Greek life recruitment and first-year students’ exposure to college social life.

But this year, survivor-support networks, colleges and students are facing a tougher challenge, what Bolling referred to as the “double red zone.” Along with freshman students, many college sophomores across the country are still having first-year experiences after COVID-19 precautions limited their own freshman years, Bolling said.

Hastings enlisted Tick to get the SU chapter up and running. The choice was clear to involve Tick, who had already been working with campus advocacy and education group Students Advocating Sexual Safety and Empowerment (SASSE) since her freshman year and has worked with Planned Parenthood in Syracuse for about two years.

Tick is now SU’s Callisto Campus Champion, the student who represents Callisto on campus and serves as a liaison to inform students about the program.

Callisto exists nationally as a nonprofit but operates on campuses as a “student-led coalition,” Tick said. Campus champions help to raise awareness of the program and build a safe community for survivors, who can then use Callisto’s resources as much or as little as they want.

Though Hastings, through her work with SA, helped to bring Callisto’s SU chapter to campus, it still operates separately from the university. It was designed to be an independent program in order to support survivors who might not be comfortable yet with reporting or going through the university’s process.

Tick believes that there are many students who don’t think SU has appropriately handled issues of sexual violence. A lot of students, both at SU and other universities, have had negative experiences after reporting, which has created an environment of mistrust, she said.

One of the reasons she thinks Callisto is a strong resource for survivors is that it offers external support, which can help survivors who don’t have confidence in Title IX, the federal legislation that guides schools’ policies regarding sex-based discrimination and sexual assault.

“A lot of students do not have trust for Title IX or don’t want to go through that process because it can be really traumatizing for them,” Bolling said. “A lot of folks describe going through the Title IX process as more traumatizing than the assault itself.”

Callisto offers three primary resources for survivors: an encrypted and time-stamped documentation service to build a record of what happened, legal options counselors to help survivors get started on the process of taking legal action and a matching service to connect incidents and identify repeat offenders.

Survivors who opt to use the matching system are asked for the state where the incident occurred, any digital identifiers of the perpetrator such as social media usernames or email addresses and the survivor’s preferred contact information.

If the information put into the system matches with information from another survivor, then the survivors are each informed of the match and put in contact with a legal options counselor. The matching system is one of the primary services offered by Callisto, and according to Bolling, one of the reasons that the organization exists.

“Callisto really exists to address one of those little known facts related to sexual assault, which is that 90% of sexual college sexual assaults are perpetrated by repeat offenders, and they will offend up to six times before they graduate,” Bolling said.

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In addition to working with Callisto, Tick coordinates with other organizations — such as SASSE — on campus to enhance resources for survivors of sexual assault.

SASSE, along with Stand With Survivors SU, hosted a mixer on Monday to provide resources and information on the red zone to students. Senior and SASSE president Marie Pascual hopes to plan more events with both Callisto and Stand With Survivors SU in the future.

“Hastings reached out to SASSE because we have very similar goals (to Callisto), just helping students have as many resources to them available and also a resource that’s not Syracuse University-affiliated,” Pascual said.

On Sept. 21, hundreds of students gathered on SU’s campus to protest recent sexual assault allegations outside of multiple Interfraternity Council chapter houses. Tick attended and was handing out information on Callisto for any protesters who may have needed the resources. Since the protest, information on resources for survivors has circulated on social media, along with information on Callisto.

“A lot of assault is happening nationally,” Bolling said. “Every day in the news, there are various campuses where a number of students have been assaulted since the beginning of the semester.”

Similar instances of protests over assault allegations have happened at other schools across the country, with most schools having a perceived lack of support from school officials, Bolling said. With the recent increase in student activism on and off social media, Bolling said that the issue is seeing a higher level of visibility.

Callisto doesn’t try to replace any existing resources on the school or legal levels, Tick said. Instead, it works alongside other systems to offer students more options.

“It quite simply is just an additional resource in the ecosystem of survivor support,” Tick said.

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Callisto hopes to expand to more campuses across the United States. It currently serves 250,000 students, with a goal of half a million by the end of the year, Bolling said.

Callisto normally expands to a campus when a student reaches out to get involved — the program provides the new campus champion with their introductory training as soon as possible in order to get support resources out to people who need them.

Looking to the future, Tick is working to find the new campus champion for Callisto at SU. Before graduation, she’ll need to find the student who will take on the role and continue her work of promoting Callisto on campus.

“It’s our dream that there’s a friend in every friend group who knows about Callisto,” Tick said. “I hope it is so ingrained in the campus culture that everyone knows about it.”

Published on October 13, 2021 at 11:41 pm

Contact Abby: avpresso@syr.edu | @abbyvp08