October 2, 2017
Dear Tulane Community,
As President Fitts announced late last month, he asked me and my colleague, Meredith Smith, to work together with our community to examine and improve the effort to end sexual assault at Tulane. Over the past weeks, we’ve held deeper conversations with members of our community who are engaged in work to help Tulane end sexual violence. We’ve appreciated the ideas that they’ve shared with us, and we welcome the opportunity to continue to explore those suggestions as we all seek to change our community and to become a national model on ending rape culture.
As part of our efforts, we have brought together some of our campus experts on the issue of sexual assault and violence from various parts of our community—faculty, staff and students. We are working with this group to identify and explore new programs and ideas to end sexual violence at Tulane. In addition to this internal task force, we are also in the process of bringing together an expert outside panel to review our practices and provide new perspective on what more we can do.
Our work will only be successful with broad input from the entire community. As we promised at Shifting the Paradigm, we’ve launched this website to help us gather input from you and serve as a repository for all of our collective efforts to end sexual violence. This site will provide updates as we continue to engage with a broad set of stakeholders throughout our community in an effort to gather input and launch new initiatives.
In addition to our on-campus dialogues and activities, it is our hope that this site will empower a broader section of our community to get involved and share ideas for our collective exploration, as well as offer suggestions on which experts to consider including on the outside panel. You can do this using the forms.
We are committed to continuing to listen to your ideas and ensuring that you see the work being undertaken in our community. Look for regular updates on our work, as well as opportunities to engage in action and conversation on these vital issues. Additionally, our doors are always open to you. Please, reach out and partner with us as we work as a community to confront these issues.
Sexual violence affects us all. No member of our community is untouched by its negative consequences. For the survivors of sexual violence, know that we are fighting for you. Your courage is a testament to your strength and an inspiration that propels us. While our work is far from over, we have reason to be optimistic. Daily, we see new hope and commitment to this issue from every corner of our campus. A wave of change is upon us, and nothing can turn it back.
Tania Tetlow​​
Senior VP & Chief of Staff to the President
Meredith Smith
Assistant Provost, Title IX
