DURHAM, N.H. - The nation's lawmakers again turned to the University of New Hampshire for expertise on preventing campus sexual assault, inviting the co-leader of the acclaimed Prevention Innovations center to testify before a Senate committee today.

Jane Stapleton, co-director of UNH's Prevention Innovations: Research and Practices for Ending Violence Against Women, testified before the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor & Pensions (HELP) Thursday, June 26, 2014. Her testimony was part of a full committee hearing looking at sexual assault on college campuses.

Stapleton spoke about Prevention Innovations' evidence-based bystander intervention strategies, which include Bringing in the Bystander®, an in-person prevention program and the Know Your Power® bystander intervention social marketing campaign, and about the Campus Sexual and Relationship Violence Consortium.

"Bystander intervention is a different approach where women are not approached as victims or potential victims and men are not approached as perpetrators or potential perpetrators. Instead, we utilize a community approach to prevention, where everyone has a role to play in ending sexual and relationship violence and stalking," she told the committee.

She urged lawmakers to consider ways to reform and strengthen federal law to better address issues of campus domestic violence, sexual assault, and stalking.

This is not the first time lawmakers have looked to UNH's Prevention Innovations to address campus sexual assault nationwide. In May, the program was one of three tapped by a White House task force to further research and training on ending campus sexual assault. In 2010, three professors involved in Prevention Innovations - Sharyn Potter, Victoria Banyard, and Robert Eckstein - briefed the White House on their work. Following that visit, Vice President Joe Biden, who was instrumental in the passage of the Violence Against Women Act of 1994, spoke at UNH in 2011 to introduce new guidance to help universities understand their obligations to prevent and respond to campus sexual assault.

Established in October 2006, Prevention Innovations is a research and training unit at UNH that develops, implements and evaluates programs, policies, and practices to help end violence against women. A multidisciplinary center, it includes faculty from the sociology, psychology, social work, and justice studies departments as well as from the women's studies program and UNH Law School.

The University of New Hampshire, founded in 1866, is a world-class public research university with the feel of a New England liberal arts college. A land, sea, and space-grant university, UNH is the state's flagship public institution, enrolling 12,300 undergraduate and 2,200 graduate students.

Photograph available to download: /unhtoday/news/releases/2014/06/images/stapleton-8125.jpg
Caption: Jane Stapleton, co-director of "Prevention Innovations: Research and Practices for Ending Violence Against Women," at the University of New Hampshire, testifies on campus sexual assaults before the Senate HELP Committee in Washington, DC, on June 26, 2014
Credit: . Photo: Jay Mallin jay@jaymallinphotos.com

Read Stapleton's full testimony here: /unhtoday/news/docs/2014/HELPtestimony.pdf

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