News – Page 43 – The Western Howl

Western hosts its first ever Out of the Darkness Walk

Bailey Thompson | News Editor

In spite of the rain that threatened to spoil the event, Western’s first Out of the Darkness Walk for suicide prevention was a shining example of what can happen when a group of people come together to support a cause that they believe in.

While Out of the Darkness Walks are not new events in general, this one was special because it was the first one that had ever been hosted in Monmouth. Organized by the WOU Wellness Advocacy Group, spearheaded largely by Tim Glascock and Shaylie Pickrell, this event was held on May 17 at Main Street Park.

When people arrived, a number of booths from Western and other local organizations greeted them, offering both their support and resources to attendees. Amongst these groups were WOU Food Pantry, University Housing, Abby’s House, Student Health and Counseling Center and Lines for Life, which is a crisis call center based in Portland.

Kicking off the event, 15 Miles West — Western’s acapella group — performed a number of hit songs as people mingled, visited booths, got registered and picked up their ceremonial beads.

Next, Ryan Price, Oregon and Idaho Area Director for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, introduced the featured speaker for the event, a Western Oregon University alumnus named Cody Welty who has shared his story even on platforms as big as NBC’s Today Show.

“It’s really good to be back in Oregon and in Monmouth,” said Welty, a current doctoral student at University of Arizona researching strategies to prevent youth deaths by suicide. “Those of you who do know me probably do know me because of my experience at WOU, either as a writing tutor, a psychology student or hopefully just a friendly face of someone you saw on or near campus.”

Welty then expressed his hope in sharing his story at this event.

“It’s a story of sadness, it’s a story of hope and most importantly it’s a story of recovery. And it’s a similar story to what many of us who are here today may have experienced,” said Welty.

Welty then discussed the way that his connection to suicide began: he was a normal, even successful, high school student who spent years masking the depression that he felt inside. Being a 4.0 student and a three-sport athlete with a supportive family and good friends, he felt that the external image he put out into the world did not match the reality of his health.

“I thought, ‘I’m a man. I can’t talk about how I feel or share this with anyone.’ And so, I shoved it away,” said Welty. “I took all those concerns and pressures and pushed them down somewhere where I could never talk about it.”

From this point, Welty remembers being in a health class and realizing how many of the symptoms of depression and anxiety were things that he had experienced — but he continued to push it down. Eventually, though, this came to a head, and Welty attempted suicide.

“At that point I think I hit my lowest. I felt that I was so much of a failure that I couldn’t even kill myself,” said Welty.

After recovering in the hospital, Welty shared with his parents that he had a new goal.

“I remember telling my family that I wanted to do my best to make sure that there were no other kids like me who felt that they were alone and couldn’t talk to anyone,” said Welty. “Depression doesn’t look like it’s a photo in a textbook. It doesn’t look the same for everyone. I knew it was time to put a face to an illness that they knew about.”

At this point, Welty started going to middle and high schools, sharing his story with kids. And the message that he conveyed to them was the same as the one that he shared at the walk.

“We are not hopeless, we are not powerless and we are not weak,” said Welty. He also impressed upon people that “we can all check on a friend or a loved one. We can all ask for help when we need it… And we can all do our best to help end suicide.”

After his speech, the crowd went through the traditional bead ceremony where people shared stories of different people in their lives who have either struggled with suicide or who have been lost to suicide — partners, children, siblings, parents, self, friends or service member/first responder. With each category, participants were asked to different colors of beads to signify the different connections that they had to suicide, aiming to build a community of support in the process.

At the close, attendees all marched from the park, through Western’s campus and back to the park.

“The walk is really a great time to come together, connect and share your story,” said Price.

Contact the author at howlnews@wou.edu

Photo by Bailey Thompson and Ashlynn Norton

Multicultural Student Union Hosts 28th Annual Nuestra Fiesta Latina

Bailey Thompson | News Editor

With festivities spanning 13 hours, the 28th Annual Nuestra Fiesta Latina was a day filled with celebration of Latin culture. Hosted by Western’s Multicultural Student Union, this event on May 17 had three main phases: the festival, the dinner and entertainment and the baile.

Overall, the goal of the event was simple.

“We strive to promote diversity and cultural awareness throughout the community and campus of Western Oregon University,” said Julissa Chacon Lopez, a sophomore and the freshman advocate for MSU.

To do so, the organization started their event with a festival in the Werner University Center Plaza. This event, which lasted from 11 a.m. -2 p.m., featured a quartet of musicians from Cuba and the United States called Son de Cuba. As this group played music from a variety of Latin genres, students could also enjoy some churros, get an airbrush tattoo, participate in a jalapeño eating contest and more.

Later in the evening, the party moved into the WUC for the next phase of the event: dinner and entertainment. This portion of Nuestra Fiesta Latina was themed for the Mexican state of Michoacán, a region with over four million people on the west coast of Mexico. To celebrate this area, all of the dancers were from Michoacán, monarch butterfly decorations adorned the room and the dinner that they served was also a specialty of Michoacán.

“We wanted to bring in our own culture from Mexico, and we wanted to bring food and music so people can feel a little bit closer to Mexico,” said Chacon Lopez. “So today we had corundas, which is a Michoacán tradition.” Along with this, guests also had the option of a couple of meats, rice and beans.

As guests began eating, they could enjoy live music from Mariachi Los Palmeros. Then, after they had finished, the Mexico en la Piel Dancers performed a number of routines as attendees continued to enjoy the bounty of food.

In between each of these dances, the two coordinators and emcees — Chacon Lopez and Jasmine Sosa, junior and social membership director for MSU — raffled off a number of piñatas and smaller prizes.

When reflecting on what it took to put this event together, Chacon Lopez recalled the many months of work that had gone into hosting such a large-scale program.

“It took since the beginning of the school year when we got an exec board … we separate the whole group into coordinating different events, and this was Jasmine and my event,” said Chacon Lopez. “So, we’ve been planning this since the middle of January.”

The final phase of the event took place an hour after the dinner had ended. The baile, or dance, was an opportunity for community members to let loose, dance and enjoy the musical tastes of DJ Sonido Kora. Back in the Pacific Room, the baile lasted until 1 a.m., a full 13 hours after the festival had begun. After a long day, Nuestra Fiesta Latina had concluded its festivities, but Chacon Lopez hoped that the impact would extend beyond the day.

“There’s a good amount of diversity on our campus, and a lot of them are Latinos and Hispanics,” said Chacon Lopez. “So, we just like to bring the community together as well as others. And it’s just a beautiful thing.”

Contact the author at howlnews@wou.edu

Photos by Bailey Thompson

International Night: Taking Western around the world in one evening

Caity Healy | Editor-in-Chief

For many students at Western, while Monmouth or the surrounding areas may be where they live, it isn’t necessarily what they’d call their “home.” And for some of these students, “home” is somewhere outside of the U.S. To give these students an opportunity to not only share a piece of their culture, but to give them a way to feel home away from home, Western hosted its 48th Annual International Night on May 10.

Before the festivities could begin, International Club had to put in work to make the event as extravagant as it was.

“My team, friends and club officers have helped so much in planning and getting things together for the event,” said Berlyn Buncal, president of International Club. She also added that putting it on took “a lot of work, coordination, communication and trust.”

When the doors opened at 5:30 p.m., the Pacific Room in the Werner University Center began filling with the faces of students, families and staff from all over, ready to experience a night packed with dances, songs and socializing. Welcome to a meal consisting of food from several different countries, the audience grabbed their plates, found a seat and waited for the performances to begin.

For those involved, this night meant a lot to them. It wasn’t only a way for them to show what the club has been doing, but a way to feel connected to the places they call home.

“International Night is a night where I get to learn about different cultures all parts of the world,” said Buncal. “It is an important night to me because we all miss our home, I miss my home. I want to give a chance to all our friends and students a chance to experience home in some sort of way, and we do that with our foods, performances and fashion show.”

And from there, the show began. The audience was presented a show consisting of 10 different performances. Western’s African Dance class performed a dance called the kpanlogo; student Zeya Gao sang a solo performance of “Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You”; Jay Archer performed a violin piece he titled “Ghibli Songs”; Ruijiaming Yang sang “Can’t Love You Enough,” accompanied by Kenneth Soh on guitar; Hawai’i Club performed a dance to “Lei Ho’oheno”; Binit Shrestha played guitar and sang “Kanchi Nani Blues”; Yilei Zhao sang “Eternal Love”; A group of four girls called Heart Dust performed an upbeat dance to “Kill This Love” by Black Pink; Hermanos Del Valle performed a dance titled “Marinera Norteña; and to finish it off, Fili and Family danced in a performance titled “Samoan Sivas.”

When the performances came to a close, the fashion show commenced. Strutting the stage donning the clothes of several different countries, the performers took to the stage in twos. Showing different examples of what each country’s traditional clothing looks like, including the apparel of Mexico, China, Ethiopia, Germany, Japan and more, the models kept the audience in all smiles.

Finally, as this event fell on Mexico’s Mother’s Day, each mother in the audience was asked to stand. Then, those involved in the event delivered a rose to each standing audience member, a gift from the International Club.

At the end of the night, there was a closeness felt amongst many in the Pacific Room, even if they were strangers only hours ago.

“We get to draw closer as a family because we show so much respect for one another and we can represent that throughout the event and our lives,” explained Buncal.

Contact the author at howleditor@wou.edu

Photos by Caity Healy

Educators walk out for Student Success Act

Bailey Thompson | News Editor

Rising early, joining together and donning red shirts, Oregon educators in Portland, Salem, Eugene, Medford, Bend and Klamath Falls made a statement on May 8, 2019. With thousands of teachers, students and community members going out into their neighborhoods throughout the state, their message was clear: pass the Student Success Act.

“The Student Success Act is a bill that is designed to start making up for the disinvestment in education that began in the early nineties with Measure 5. It would reduce class sizes, it would provide mental health care, it would provide pre-k funding — it would really do a lot to change our schools and to start to get them back to where they belong,” said Ben Gorman, English teacher at Central High School. “It’s not the end of the road … but this is a real excellent start for our students and what they need.”

On the day of the walkout, a large number of Central School District teachers got up early to stand outside CHS, then go to a larger event in Salem and finally come back to CHS at the end of the day. Community members honked continually in support for those holding signs.

As of May 8, this piece of legislation had passed through the Oregon House of Representatives; however, on May 13, it passed through the Oregon Senate, as well.

When speaking about the motivation for this school walk-out, Gorman shared the sentiment that had led many teachers to protest.

“So often teachers are just so exhausted by a very difficult job, and they say to themselves, ‘I need to focus on my own kids, and I can’t focus on politics of how to support my kids,’” said Gorman. “But we’ve gotten to the point where teachers are saying, ‘Enough is enough. I can’t possibly do this.’”

After educators had protested in a similar way on President’s Day without any reaction from the legislature, Central Education Association President and math teacher Laura Waight described the shift that took place.

“The conversation began to transition to ‘how do we get the legislators’ attention?’ And the only way: shut it down,” said Waight. “Shut it down and show them that we’re willing to take an unpaid day to show them how serious we are.”

While some people may be opposed to the Student Success Act for fear of their taxes raising, Gorman shared why this fear is unfounded.

“One of the things you’ll hear is ‘this is going to be a tax increase on the people in our state,’ and that’s just false. In fact, if it passes, this will be a tax cut for your average Oregonian,” said Gorman.

“What the Student Success Act has done, which is historic in Oregon, is to ask corporations that make a million dollars or more in the state of Oregon for a small tax on that money,” added Waight. “The same corporations which were against something like this (with bills in the past) are now for it — Nike, Powell’s, HP, and some other big Oregon companies are now saying, ‘please tax us because we see the result of having underfunded schools.’”

In the end, both Waight and Gorman asserted that support for students is something that should be a universal goal — not something considered partisan — even if you believe it should be done another way, as approximately 25% of teachers in the district do.

“We can’t say that standing on the street corner or going to Salem is going to change anything, but what we do know for sure is that if we continue not to do anything, then nothing will change,” said Waight. “We have to change the game.”

The final step before the Student Success Act is passed is for it to be signed by Governor Brown.

Contact the author at howlnews@wou.edu

Photos by Bailey Thompson

Real Time Class Availability returns

Bailey Thompson | News Editor

While students may not think very much about the way that they find their classes on a daily basis, a significant percentage of Western students became upset when they learned that the Real-Time Class Availability feature had been removed from Western’s Portal.

Noticing this frustration among students, the Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Kathy Cassity, turned to Honors Program Director Gavin Keulks to get a feel for student approval or disapproval for the new system along with why.

“Our registrar’s office works extraordinarily hard to develop or reimagine processes for everyone’s benefit,” said Keulks, acknowledging the effort that went into the new scheduling system.

With that said, however, Keulks also noted that the way students responded to the new system was primarily negative.

“I think their intentions were in the right place with this change, but the regular real-time availability function is beloved by students, well formatted and easy to use, so that made changing it harder than anticipated,” said Keulks.

After sending out a survey at Dean Cassity’s request, 83.3% of students surveyed indicated that they either “strongly disapproved” or “disapproved” of the new system, citing ease of use, speed and layout as their primary reasons for disliking the new system.

With this information in hand, Amy Clark, the University Registrar, shared the news with students via email on April 30 that they would now have both options to choose from.

“The Real-Time Schedule View is back by popular demand,” said Clark.

Having delivered this update, Clark then shared with students some of the benefits that using the new system could have, if they were willing to learn the different format. With the new system, students can use the enhanced search feature to find classes based on location, instructional method, course attribute, title, days of the weeks, start and end times and/or credit hours.

Both of these options are now available for students to use on Western’s website.

Contact the author at howlnews@wou.edu

Celebrating Earth Day

Bailey Thompson | News Editor

With crowds of people moving from station to station — enjoying the warmth of a sunny Saturday in the Grove — Green Team members and volunteers in blue t-shirts helped explain the many activities that were included in Green Team’s Annual Earth Fair on May 4. Although Earth Day may have passed a couple weeks ago on April 22, the members of Green Team were still eager to share their knowledge and enthusiasm with the Western community at large.

As one of the organizers of the event and Green Team’s Treasurer, Liv Geisler-Wagner shared some of the things that were featured in this year’s Earth Fair event. A few of the just-for-fun elements included tie dye t-shirts, volleyball, food, Sibling Weekend stations, face painting and henna tattoos, but there were also a number of stations with practical crafts that attendees could use in their day-to-day lives as well.

“We have reusable dryer sheets, which are basically just old t-shirt scraps you can make at home,” said Geisler-Wagner. “You put a couple drops of essential oil in a jar with some vinegar, and then we put t-shirt scraps in there. You just throw one in with your laundry when you put it in the dryer — the exact same as a dryer sheet. Then you can reuse them as many times as you want.”

Geisler-Wagner also mentioned a couple of other easy, creative things that students could do with their old household items.

“We also have plastic bag bracelets, which is a good way to reuse your plastics since a lot of plastics, including the bags, can’t be recycled,” said Geisler-Wagner.

In order to test student knowledge on recycling, Green Team also concocted a game which asked students to determine which items from a given set were able to be recycled.

And on another practical note, Green Team also chose to coordinate efforts with the Physical Plant in order to plant flowers on campus — right on the edge of the Grove.

While students who attended the Green Team Earth Fair received a number of specific strategies they could use in the future, Geisler-Wagner shared that there are other simple resources that those who didn’t attend can use to get involved as well.

“Google is your friend,” said Geisler-Wagner. “Most of what we do is Googling ‘sustainable crafts’ or ‘how can I reduce my plastic consumption’ or ‘how can I be greener in a dorm?’”

Students also have a fitting resource in Green Team themselves, and Geisler-Wagner conveyed that there are a number of ways that students can be in contact with them

“Our office is in Heritage. So, if you’re in Heritage and you’d like to stop by, if the door’s open, we’re there,” said Geisler-Wagner. “We have our office hours poster on the door… And if they don’t live in Heritage, they can also email us, and we can let them in if we know they’re coming.”

In addition to this, interested students can also contact Green Team on their social media accounts, and Geisler-Wagner can be reached directly at ogeislerwagner16@wou.edu.

Contact the author at howlnews@wou.edu

Photo by Ashlynn Norton

Changes are coming to the Western Business Office for the 2019-2020 academic year

Bailey Thompson | News Editor

Looking forward to the future of Western, there are some financial changes that will be unavoidable; however, there is a team who is actively dedicated to keeping Western affordable for upcoming generations of Wolves.

For the 2019-2020 academic year in particular, there are a number of significant changes to the Business Office and to tuition rates that will heavily impact the financial opportunities of Western students. Setting the tone, while many of Oregon’s public universities have either reported higher numbers or have not shared their tuition rates for next year yet, Western has committed to an increase of only 2.33% for undergraduate residents, which was decided by the Tuition and Fees Advisory Committee.

Evelyn Guzman, Erik Morgan and Ailyn Angel — student leaders and representatives on TFAC — shared what it was like for them to come to this decision.

“The administration is really great for doing this even before the House Bill (3381) was passed — they’ve listened to student voices, whereas a lot of other universities haven’t,” said Angel, a senior interdisciplinary studies major on the committee. “You never feel like you’re asking a dumb question, and they really allow us to be a part of the decision-making process.”

In addition to this small tuition increase, Western has also shown its commitment to affordability through other things like keeping the cost for room and board flat and keeping the incidental fee increase under 5%.

Another way that Western is making financial changes for the benefit of students relates to the Tuition Promise plan.

“When WOU Promise was initially created, it was an environment when double-digit tuition increases were very common… But since that time, the environment has changed and there is now a very low tuition increase, so it turns out that what they set out in their plan is more expensive than if they were without the plan,” said Dr. Karaman, Vice President for Finance and Administration. “Dr. Fuller always felt that it’s the right thing to do to give the lowest of the available rates. So, this year we just said, ‘let’s go ahead and do it.’”

Dr. Karaman credits Dona Vasas and Camarie Campfield, the Bursar and Budget Manager, as being instrumental to bringing these changes about as well.

A final couple of updates from the Business Office that will impact Western students beginning next academic year are that seniors will no longer have to pay a $50 fee to apply to graduate, and students will also have 30 days beyond when the term starts to pay their bill.

“Students are here for academics. Yes, they need to pay their bill, but let’s make sure that their bill isn’t impacting their academic achievement,” said Vasas.

Although there are a number of things to keep track of, the staff at the Business and Financial Aid Offices is dedicated to serving any students who have questions about how these changes could be impacting them.

“The overall goal is that we want Western to be the most affordable public university in the state of Oregon, and we also want to make sure that students don’t go into debt,” concluded Dr. Karaman.

Contact the author at howlnews@wou.edu

Photo by Ashlynn Norton

Hawai’i Club’s 12th Annual Lūʻau

Bailey Thompson | News Editor

While many students may be consumed with the stress of midterms and other exams, a number of Western’s Hawaiian students took time on May 4 to come together and focus their attention on other important things like home, family and unity. As Hawai’i Club’s 12th Annual Lūʻau, the club’s biggest event of the year, members of the Hawaiian community pulled out all the stops to make sure that everyone had a fun and relaxing evening.

For the first portion of the event, guests were free to settle in, mingle, visit the Hawai’i Club store — a table which sold t-shirts, stickers, Hawaiian foods and more — and go eat a catered meal. For dinner, attendees could choose any variety of kalua pork, chicken, tofu, rice, macaroni salad and pineapple. They could also choose from a couple of different coconut-flavored dessert options.

The program began when a Pu shell was blown and a group of dancers walked onto the stage, performing a Hawaiian chant. The Hawai’i Club President, Sophia Grace Kalei Ho’omaikai Kala’i Igarta, started it off, and a number of girls followed along after her.

The theme for the 2019 Lūʻau was ‘Stories of the Pacific.’

“Storytelling and oral traditions are an important aspect of Polynesian culture, and we aim to share our stories here tonight,” said Igarta, a junior at Western.

While each of the numbers highlighted beautiful hula choreography, music, dancers and costumes, they also carried a myriad of underlying meanings that made them more personal and significant for those dancing them. For the show as a whole, though, Igarta shared the inspiration behind the theme.

“Are we honoring and embracing the knowledge of our ancestors? Are we being respectful to ourselves, to our kuhana and to others? Are we taking care of the ʻāina, the land? How are we living our lives?” said Igarta. “It’s an important question with what we see going on in the world right now.”

In between each number, the emcees for the event, Anthony Pablo and Susie Krall, shared the meaning behind each of the choreographed pieces. While some honored various elements of nature — the waves, the mountain tops and even seaweed — there were others that were more specific to one person’s experiences.

For one of the dancers, Tatiana-Marie Whitlow, her solo dance ‘Ka Wailele o Nu’uanu

was dedicated to the memory of a mentor who had passed away. And, to honor that person, she danced to a song that was written by a man who had recently lost his father.

“Look at the waterfall on the left and know that it will always be there” said Krall, translating part of the song’s melody. Krall also emphasized that “It’s really important that we remember our traditions and acknowledge the people who came before us.

On top of the many meaningful dances, Pablo also helped to ensure that the event was engaging for the audience through the use of a couple of games that pull on Hawaiian culture: a cheehoo contest and a pidgin contest.

According to the blog Hawaii Chee, “’Cheehoo!’ is exclaimed when you are celebrating or if something is exciting.” So, while this was something that audience members did on their own throughout the performances to mark their enthusiasm, it was also something that a couple of audience members volunteered to compete in.

Later in the evening, Pablo also led participants in a contest where volunteers read a statement of Hawaiian pidgin to the best of their ability. In both of these games, participants were able to celebrate Hawaiian culture while simultaneously letting loose and having fun with loved ones.

To rouse the crowd in a final number, Hawai’i Club had arranged for a traditional dance that brought everyone together.

“As our program comes to a close, we’d like to welcome Tava’e Sina Sofa to the stage… and share with us the Taualuga. It’s a very special dance in Samoan culture which is often given to the chief’s daughter,” said Krall. “She is given the honor to represent the village through dance. She represents the dignity and honor of her village, and it is often performed as the grand finale of celebrations or other social functions.”

During this performance, a young woman danced alone, brought to the floor by a chaperone, as members of the crowd cheered and brought money forward to throw at the girl’s feet as she danced.

Finally, the club ended their celebration by singing Hawai’i Aloha — a Hawaiian anthem — as a group, standing, holding hands and swaying to the music they created with only their voices.

Contact the author at howlnews@wou.edu

Photos by Ashlynn Norton

Denim Day event supports sexual assault survivors

Bailey Thompson | News Editor

While DIY denim coffee mugs and bookmarks might draw people’s attention for being cute, Abby’s House and Alpha Chi Omega had more in mind when they organized a Denim Day event on April 25 in the Werner University Center. Instead of celebrating an iconic fashion contributor, Denim Day is actually a time when people all over the world come together in support of sexual assault survivors.

“Denim Day was created after a ruling by the Italian Supreme Court,” said Lisette Cervantes, Bilingual Advocate Outreach Coordinator at Abby’s House. “An 18-year-old girl was raped, but the conviction was overturned because the Justice felt that, since the victim was wearing tight jeans, that the perpetrator needed help to take them off… so that implied consent. So, the next day, women in the Italian government wore jeans to work in solidarity for the survivor.”

Even though this event happened back in 1992, it is just as important to remember today.

“Denim Day is important for people to recognize and be aware of because, while we would like to say that we as a society have progressed quite a bit in the past 17 years since this original incident, we haven’t come as far as we would like to think sometimes,” said Helen Goodyear, Vice President of Philanthropy for Alpha Chi Omega.

Goodyear also pointed out that, even though the numbers associated with sexual assault conviction can be discouraging, it is important to keep fighting to eradicate this problem in the world around us.

“The goal of Denim Day is to educate people on how they can help be a part of the solution to the issue and can help shut down the pervasive nature of rape culture in our society,” said Goodyear. “We want to recognize that the overturning of sexual assault convictions is something that still happens today and that we can be a part of changing the conversation around sexual assault.”

Cervantes similarly shared that her goal was for people to work towards “breaking down the victim-blaming and showing people how they can be active listeners and advocates as well in their personal life … Start by believing is a big thing in just showing support for people.”

Although not everyone has experienced sexual assault personally, Goodyear shared that there is another reason that people should care: it affects the people around you.

“People we love are afraid to pursue legal action, not because the crimes they are accusing their rapist of are horrendous, but because they don’t want those heinous crimes to reflect back on them negatively as a victim,” said Goodyear.

For anyone at Western who would like to learn more about resources available to survivors, a few of the notable ones include peer advocates and confidential advocates at Abby’s House in the Werner University Center, RAINN, The Sexual Assault Resource Center of Oregon and The Center for Hope and Safety in Salem.

Contact the author at howlnews@wou.edu

Photo by Ashlynn Norton

Showing support for those affected by sex trafficking

Caity Healy | Editor-in-Chief

“If you encounter a person in your professional or personal life that you think has been trafficked, your role isn’t to get a disclosure — it is to create a space that is safe and non-judgmental so that the survivor can experience support and access services in the future.” This quote was given by Ashley Anstett, who currently works for Oregon Attorney General’s Sexual Assault Task Force. On April 18, Anstett came to Western to discuss a topic that is too often ignored: sex trafficking.

Before working as part of the Task Force, Anstett worked at the Sexual Assault Resource Center as a confidential advocate for survivors of domestic sex trafficking. Before that, she worked with domestic violence offenders and juvenile sex offenders — a part of her professional history that she deems very important.

“It gave me an appreciation for the dynamics that create the complexities around domestic violence, sexual assault and trafficking,” said Anstett, “which all have roots in power and control.”

When it comes to sex trafficking, which is defined by state.gov as “the act of recruiting, harboring, transporting, providing, or obtaining a person for compelled labor or commercial sex acts through the use of force, fraud, or coercion,” there are some things that Anstett notes students should do when they come across someone they think has been trafficked.

“Honor survivor experience and support them. It is important to meet them where they are at,” Anstett said. “There are a lot of misconceptions that these youth and young adults need to be ‘rescued’ when many don’t identify as victims.”

Anstett went on to add that, “every survivor’s story is unique: from how they entered into the life, to what their experiences in the life, and their ability or choice to leave. Every trafficking survivor deserves to have someone in their corner supporting them, supporting whatever their dreams are.”

While there are some definite red flags that are associated with sex trafficking, it’s important to note that just because they are present, it doesn’t mean it is happening. That being said, some of the red flags include, “a lot of unexplained cash and jewelry or shoes and expensive purses, multiple cell phones, and (an unwillingness) to make choices or decisions on their own, or if there is a clear dynamic between partners where one partner is clearly in control of everything,” explained Anstett.

If students think someone they know might be a victim of sex trafficking, there are some things they should do.

“Be a place that someone feels safe coming to where they won’t feel judged or shamed,” said Anstett. “Even if they are in the stages of change where they are just contemplating, but not ready to leave the life, being a non-judgmental presence that supports them in who they are so they know there is someone loving and consistent that will be there no matter what is an incredibly important piece of empowerment.”

To close, Anstett wanted to add one last takeaway she hopes students will remember.

“I want people to understand that traffickers are adept at finding someone’s vulnerabilities and exploiting them,” Anstett said. “It is important to come alongside survivors and support and empower them … by giving them choice and agency in their lives.”

There are many resources students should know about in regards to sex trafficking. For help and support, Anstett recommends students look at the Polaris Project, which can be reached at 1-888-373-7888. They can also reach out to the Safety Compass, which is confidential advocacy for youth and young adults between ages 12-15 in the Marion, Washington, Clackamas and Multnomah counties, and can be reached at 971-235-0021.

Contact the author at howleditor@wou.edu

Photo by Ashlynn Norton

Western Oregon University’s Land Acknowledgement
Western Oregon University in Monmouth, OR is located within the traditional homelands of the Luckiamute Band of Kalapuya. Following the Willamette Valley Treaty of 1855 (Kalapuya etc. Treaty), Kalapuya people were forcibly removed to reservations in Western Oregon. Today, living descendants of these people are a part of the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde Community of Oregon and the Confederated Tribes of the Siletz Indians.

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WOU prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, sex, national or ethnic origin, age, religion, marital status, disability, veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression in all programs, activities and employment practices as required by Title IX, other applicable laws, and policies. Retaliation is prohibited by WOU.

Western hosts its first ever Out of the Darkness Walk

Multicultural Student Union Hosts 28th Annual Nuestra Fiesta Latina

International Night: Taking Western around the world in one evening

Educators walk out for Student Success Act

Real Time Class Availability returns

Celebrating Earth Day

Changes are coming to the Western Business Office for the 2019-2020 academic year

Hawai’i Club’s 12th Annual Lūʻau

Denim Day event supports sexual assault survivors

Showing support for those affected by sex trafficking

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