Eric Barron Adopts All 18 Sexual Assault Policy Recommendations from Task Force Report
ByEric Barron, Penn State University's (PSU) president, has publicly endorsed all 18 policy recommendations from a sexual assault task force he assembled in July.
According to the Associated Press, Barron announced Tuesday that the school will open an office to handle sexual misconduct complaints from students. He said PSU will also hire a coordinator who will be responsible for crafting a new way to approach sexual assault investigations.
Penn State's Task Force on Sexual Assault and Harassment, which Barron formed in July, returned its report in Jan. with 18 policy recommendations. After reviewing the 17-member group's 200-page report, Barron said he will adopt all 18 recommendations.
"I found that every recommendation has merit and that when combined, these actions present a strong and comprehensive response to sexual violence and harassment on our campuses," Barron said in a news release. "This report sets our expectations at an extremely high level - it's a level I know we can achieve. It is a well-thought out roadmap for moving Penn State into a national leadership position in the struggle to address sexual misconduct."
Damon Sims, PSU's vice president for student affairs, chaired the task force. In a Jan. statement, he said the group is "confident that Penn State is poised to lead in the struggle to combat this deeply troubling issue in higher education."
You can see the full list of recommendations here.
"We take any incidence of sexual misconduct seriously and while Penn State has a long history of prevention programs, policies and protocols to address sexual misconduct, these need to be better coordinated and integrated across our campuses. At the same time we must move forward in developing new initiatives with the continued hope that we can impact this serious challenge," Barron said in the release. "I'm grateful to the task force for its hard work and I am certain that their efforts will spur community dialogue about this important issue."