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With reference to “Dude, You Don’t Know the Half of It” (June 17, 2005): Reading blogs posted by college students is one quick way to learn what they’re thinking. Another is to offer a program that challenges them to tell their peers and older people what they stand for, worry about, and are seeking. A program on “accountability in men” at Southern Oregon University recently gave undergraduates an opportunity to do that. The AIM program was motivated by a desire to respond to a student culture that seemed to tolerate or at least not explicitly oppose date rapes and casual violence. Even though this problem was no more severe at SOU than at many other campuses--22 date rapes were reported last year--the university distinguished itself by doing something about it. Staff for the program came largely from graduates of The Mankind Project ( Since the MKP training invites participants to define their missions in life, it was natural for the staff to arrange for students to answer this same question, through the medium of many exercises. Even undergraduates not concerned with body piercing seldom begin an intense weekend by being welcomed with the question, “What do you want in your obituary?” Because of strong support from the football coach, many students in the AIM program were athletes; others were dorm supervisors and student leaders. Some of the original participants dropped out, but among the majority who stayed the entire weekend, many asked later whether they could help staff the next workshop. The AIM program attracts not so much the few who cause trouble, as student leaders who can subtly and palpably redefine campus culture, specifically the prevailing sense of what is cool or even tolerable behavior. Results of this workshop were evaluated by a psychology professor at SOU, who found a statistically significant decrease in levels of acceptance of violence and of the “rape myth” (“she really wanted it”), and an increase in knowledge about and placing value on accountability. All staff (except the leaders) were volunteers, and SOU provided the room, so costs were low. MKP volunteers made no effort to proselytize and in fact did not even mention the source of their own training. Since MKP graduates live all over the U.S., the small team of leaders can call on local volunteers to bring the program to many colleges, in collaboration with student affairs people. I have no connection, financial or otherwise, with the AIM program, but was allowed to observe its entire first workshop and a follow-up session. My interest comes from my own wish that as a college student I’d had access to a program such as this. What the nonprofit called AIM offers is easy to discover on its web site, < www.aim-trainings-inc.com>. Craig K. Comstock The writer drafted a report called Faculty Development in a Time of Retrenchment. |
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