Title IX/Green Dot Initiative (Bradford/Titusville)



Abstract 

The Pitt Seed Special Cycle – Prevention of Sexual Misconduct grant will provide the Pitt-Bradford and Pitt-Titusville campuses with the financial resources for full implementation of the Green Dot Program, a nationally recognized evidence based bystander intervention program.  The Green Dot Program will be housed within our Title IX Office that is scheduled for launch in January 2020.  The grant will also provide resources to enable the Title IX Office to deliver training that addresses prevalence and reporting of sexual misconduct on both campuses.

Currently, the Chief of Staff at Pitt-Bradford serves as the Title IX and Affirmative Action Office for the Bradford and Titusville campuses.  A significant challenge has been that the staffing allocation limited our capacity to provide robust prevention and intervention programs.  Given the current environment nationally and the recent results of the Campus Climate Survey we are establishing a separate and distinct Title IX Office on the Pitt-Bradford Campus that will also serve the Pitt-Titusville campus.  It is our belief that by integrating Green Dot into this office we will be able to provide addition resources for training, awareness and prevention programming and increased access to resources for faculty, staff, and students at both campuses.  This seed funding will provide the financial resources to hire student workers, purchase educational materials, and enhance technology equipment in the Title IX Office.  The Title IX/Equity Investigator will utilize those resources to coordinate the Green Dot Program and provide sexual misconduct and awareness training for students, faculty and staff on the Bradford and Titusville campuses.

The Green Dot strategy is a comprehensive approach to violence prevention that capitalizes on the power of peer and cultural influence across all levels of the socio-ecological model. Informed by social change theory, the model targets all community members as potential allies and bystanders and seeks to engage them in prevention. Through awareness, education, and skills practice, they do proactive behaviors that establish intolerance of violence as the norm, as well as reactive interventions in high-risk situations – resulting in the ultimate reduction of violence. Specifically, the program targets socially influential individuals from community subgroups. The goal is for these groups to engage in a basic education program that will equip them to integrate moments of prevention within existing relationships and daily activities. By doing so, new norms will be introduced and those in their sphere of influence will be significantly influenced to move from passive agreement that violence is wrong, to active intervention. Finally, in contrast to historical approaches to violence prevention that have focused on victims and perpetrators, the Green Dot Strategy is predicated on the belief that individual safety is a community responsibility and shifts the lens away from victims/perpetrators and onto allies and change agents. The overarching goal is to mobilize a force of engaged and proactive bystanders throughout the campus community.

Project Lead

Christy Clark 
Co-Project Lead
Chief of Staff 

Eddie Buggie 
Co-Project Lead
Title IX - Office of the President

Select Collaborator

Michelle Therminy
Team Member 
Office of the President 
 

 

Goal Area