Student Union
- By Katie Nicora
Sex Assault Not Unusual on Campus, Says #MeToo
![FILE - People participate in a protest march for survivors of sexual assault and their supporters in the Hollywood section of Los Angeles, California, Nov. 12, 2017. Women aged 18-24 are more likely to experience sexual violence than any other female demographic in the U.S., data show.](https://gdb.voanews.com/82668203-a25f-4a2b-aa4d-838015293ee8_cx0_cy9_cw0_w250_r1_s.jpg)
She’d never been in his apartment at night, or even dusk, as it was now. Low purple light spilled into the living room, its walls lined and stacked with books. Light from the TV flashed red, blue and white, the nightly news.
She was 19 and the man beside her -- an intern supervisor -- was far too old to be putting an arm around her shoulders. Or sliding closer on the couch, as he was doing now, cupping her face in his hands to plant a kiss.
The story surprised her friends, but not deeply. Same song, different verse, they said. All her friends had experienced that particular blend of discomfort and fear brought on by an older man overstepping his authority.
In the days following, she poked around, searching out other female students who’d worked with him. One by one, they told her the same thing: No, they’d never gotten weird vibes. No, they’d never been invited to work at his apartment. And no, he’d definitely never touched them.
Knowing it would be another case of “he said/she said,” and that she had no evidence to show the school, she let it go. Statistics show that is not an unusual response.
But these past few weeks have seen a wash of public support for victims of sexual harassment and assault after powerful Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein was outed for longtime predation.
Survivors are speaking up louder than ever, and campus activists are using that momentum to end the dynamic that powerful men -- like professors -- have over students who are eager to please intellectually and for good grades.
Women 18-24 are more likely to experience sexual violence than any other female demographic in the U.S., according to Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network (RAINN). College students within that age group are three times more likely than the average American woman to be assaulted. Young women within that age group not attending university are four times more likely.
According to a 2014 report from the U.S. Department of Justice, about 80 percent of victims knew their offender. No matter where they occur, these incidences are likely to go unreported, off or on campus. Nearly half of all targets say they thought their offender was under the influence of drugs or alcohol at the time of assault.
And, 20 percent of both groups cited fear of reprisal as the reason for not reporting.
“It’s absolutely heartbreaking,” said Clarke Rose, a student at the American University of Paris. “More importantly, it’s [expletive] necessary” to bring the issue to light.
Awareness campaign
In the days following allegations against Weinstein, millions took to Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and other social media to share the hashtag #MeToo. The posts were part of an awareness campaign, aimed at exposing the pervasiveness of sexual harassment and assault, and rape culture in the United States.
Rose took part in France’s parallel – and somewhat more aggressive – campaign, #BalanceTonPorc, or “rat out your pig.”
“A lot of people have responded to #MeToo by asking why survivors are always the ones who have to come forward and bear our traumas in order for people to see us as human,” said Sofie Karasek, 22, to MTV. Karasek organized a candlelight vigil for the survivor advocacy group, End Rape on Campus, in Washington.
“It’s also a crucial time to point out that people accused of sexual assault don't just leave college and then disappear into the ether,” she said. “They can become powerful people who run companies, like Harvey Weinstein.”
In the weeks since, more allegations have spilled out, many against notable and powerful men. Female legislators and state employees have spoken out about their male colleagues in California, Massachusetts, and other states, citing harassment and inappropriate behavior.
In the last week, a criminal investigation was opened into allegations of sexual misconduct against three psychology professors at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire. At Berklee College of Music in Boston, the administration caught flak this week for allowing a professor to quietly leave the school after a student accused him of sex abuse.
“Rather than being able to fully focus on coursework and learning, these students are burdened with the constant fear of violence and harassment on campus,” said Shivani Desai, a national campus organizer for the Feminist Majority Foundation (FMF).
“The #MeToo movement highlighted a reality of violence that women, queer, and trans folk already painfully and intimately knew – because we live it day in and day out,” Desai said.
“The power and reach of millions of voices provided a national platform, one that emphasized the dangerous culture that affords perpetrators and bigots positions of power and allows them to make harmful decisions.”
Student activists are “meeting with their administrators” to push back on issues like Title IX guidelines, which prohibit gender discrimination -- such as sexual harassment -- at colleges and universities that receive federal funding. Those guidelines were recently rolled back by Education Secretary Betsy DeVos.
A recent poll out from ABC News and the Washington Post shows 54 percent of American women have experienced “unwanted and inappropriate sexual advances” in the workplace. Thirty percent of women said their male colleagues were the perpetrators, with 25 percent saying these were colleagues who held sway over their careers.
Like their college-age counterparts, 95 percent of American women reported the offending male colleagues went totally unpunished. Since the last similar poll conducted in 2011, a majority of those polled said they consider sexual harassment a serious problem.
“Students have been organizing against sexual violence for countless years, and they will continue to fight for themselves and their communities,” Desai said of on-campus activists.
“What is most important, is that at this moment in history, we, all assault survivors, are sharing and listening and loving and finding out, we are not alone,” Rose said.
Do you know someone who has been harassed or assaulted by an older, more powerful person? Please share your thoughts in the Comments here, and visit us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn. Thanks!
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- By VOA News
International students have options to pay for grad school
![Children play outside Royce Hall at the University of California, Los Angeles, campus in Los Angeles, Aug. 15, 2024.](https://gdb.voanews.com/01000000-0aff-0242-c0a6-08dcc2504f9d_w250_r1_s.jpg)
U.S. News & World Report tackles the challenges of paying for grad school as an international student with this story giving tips on paying for school. Read the full story here. (August 2024)
- By Tracy Liu
Economics, tensions blamed for Chinese students shifting from US to Australia, Britain
![FILE - Chinese students wait outside the U.S. Embassy for their visa application interviews, May 2, 2012, in Beijing.](https://gdb.voanews.com/01000000-0aff-0242-4fea-08dc96d3d82c_cx0_cy5_cw0_w250_r1_s.jpg)
U.S. universities are welcoming international students as the academic year begins. But while the total number of foreign students is steadily growing, the top sending country, China, is showing signs of leveling out or shrinking.
Industry analysts say the negative trend is mainly due to higher costs amid China’s struggling economy, with a growing number of students going to less expensive countries like Australia and Britain, and tense ties between Washington and Beijing.
The number of foreign students studying in the U.S. in 2022-23 passed 1 million for the first time since the COVID pandemic, said Open Doors, an information resource on international students and scholars.
While the U.S. saw a nearly 12% total increase year-on-year for that period, the number of international students from China, its top source, fell by 0.2% to 289,526.
That’s 600 fewer students than the 2021-22 academic year, when their numbers dropped by nearly 9%. The COVID pandemic saw Chinese student numbers drop in 2020-21 by nearly 15%, in line with the world total drop.
While it’s not yet clear if the drop is a leveling out or a fluctuating decline, analysts say China’s struggling economy and the high cost of studying in the U.S. are the main reasons for the fall in student numbers.
Vincent Chen, a Chinese study abroad consultant based in Shanghai, said although most of his clients are still interested in studying in the U.S., there is a clear downward trend, while applicants for Anglophone universities in Australia and Britain have been increasing.
"If you just want to go abroad, a one-year master's degree in the U.K. is much cheaper,” Chen said. “Many people can't afford to study in the U.S., so they have to settle for the next best thing."
Data from the nonprofit U.S. group College Board Research shows that in the 2023-24 academic year, the average tuition and fees for a U.S. private college four-year education increased 4% to $41,540 compared with the previous academic year.
The British Council said three to four years of undergraduate tuition in Britain starts as low as $15,000.
The number of Chinese students in Britain was 154,260 in 2022-23, according to the U.K. Higher Education Statistics Agency, HESA, up from 121,145 in the 2018/19 academic year.
Australia’s Home Affairs office said in the 2023-24 program year, China was the top source foreign country for new student visa grants at 43,389, up slightly (1.5%) from the previous year.
Chen said Chinese state media's negative portrayal of the United States and concerns about discrimination have also contributed to the shift.
Bruce Zhang, a Chinese citizen who received his master's degree in Europe after studying in China, told VOA Mandarin he had such an incident occur to him after he was admitted to a U.S. university’s Ph.D. program.
When he entered Boston's Logan International Airport last year, Zhang said customs officers questioned him for more than an hour about his research, and if it had any links to the military, and took his computer and mobile phone for examination.
"Fortunately, I had heard that U.S. customs might be stringent in inspecting Chinese students, so I had relatively few study-related data and documents on my personal computer," he said.
Zhang was allowed to enter the U.S. for his studies in materials science, but the questioning left him so rattled that he has encouraged other Chinese to study elsewhere.
Cui Kai, a study abroad consultant in Massachusetts told VOA Mandarin that experiences like Zhang’s or worse happen for a reason.
"Students who were questioned or their visas were revoked at the customs are usually those who completed their undergraduate studies in China and come to the U.S. for a master's or doctoral degree in a sensitive major," said Cui.
Former President Donald Trump signed Proclamation 10043 in June 2020, prohibiting visas for any Chinese student who “has been employed by, studied at, or conducted research at or on behalf of, an entity in the PRC that implements or supports the PRC's “military-civil fusion strategy.”
The U.S. says China has been using students and scholars to gain access to key technology and, under Proclamation 10043, revoked more than 1,000 visas issued to Chinese nationals and has denied thousands more.
Critics say the policy is costly to the U.S. and is encouraging Chinese students to look to European and other universities.
Adrianna Zhang contributed to this report.
- By VOA News
Duolingo report details the reality of Gen Z international students
![FILE - A Dartmouth Athletics banner hangs outside Alumni Gymnasium on the Dartmouth University campus in Hanover, NH, March 5, 2024.](https://gdb.voanews.com/01000000-0aff-0242-e46b-08dcc24fe52c_cx0_cy9_cw0_w250_r1_s.jpg)
A report by Duolingo takes a look at the experiences of Gen Z international students studying in the U.S., Australia and the U.K, The Pie reports.
The report, the site says, debunks "characterizations of them as 'tech-obsessed, attention-deficit and self-centered'" and highlights "their emerging role in shaping global politics and economics."
Read the full story here. (August 2024)
- By VOA News
School with the lowest costs for international students
![FILE - A newly printed U.S. dollar bill is shown at the Bureau of Engraving and Printing's Western Currency Facility in Fort Worth, Texas, on Dec. 8, 2022.](https://gdb.voanews.com/01000000-0aff-0242-5bb0-08dba10bf4ed_w250_r1_s.jpg)
U.S. News & World Report crunched the numbers and came up with a list of 20 U.S. colleges and universities with annual total costs at or below $20,184. Check out these best bargains for international students here. (August 2024)
- By VOA News
How to make the most of schools' international student services
![FILE - Students walk down Jayhawk Boulevard, the main street through the main University of Kansas campus, in Lawrence, Kansas, April 12, 2024.](https://gdb.voanews.com/01000000-0aff-0242-b8af-08dca145cc99_w250_r1_s.jpg)
U.S. colleges and universities offer a variety of services for international students.
U.S. News & World Report takes a look at them and details how to best use them. Read the article here. (June 2024)