Incidents of sexual violence and sexual harassment (SVSH) have been a focus of national headlines this year as a social and political movement swept the country. SVSH is also a longstanding topic of interest among social science researchers nationally, and UC Berkeley administrators and practitioners are making efforts to improve SVSH support, procedure, and policy on campus. Yet there is often too little connection between the administrators and practitioners working to reduce SVSH on campus and the researchers who carry out the university's academic mission.
This Matrix Project Team will work to bridge this gap by convening a series of panel discussions among on-campus practitioners and researchers across different disciplines, including psychology, sociology, law, and community dynamics, all of which are necessary to prevent further trauma and recidivism as well as to promote healing.
“Sexual violence requires an interdisciplinary solution, because it is an interdisciplinary problem,” the team wrote in their proposal. “With support from Matrix, we can give those working on our campus a platform to collaborate, potentially transforming our campus culture and the field of violence prevention and response at large.”