DAVENPORT, Iowa-- This week, students and faculty at St. Ambrose University are welcomed to take open training sessions on how to intervene if you come across a difficult situation.
The Green Dot Bystander Intervention program is national training campuses across the country take part in to learn how to stop sexual harassment or assault.
SAU wanted to take the initiative further and expand the program.
"We need to make a statement to say that violence of any kind is unacceptable on our campus and especially sexual violence," Director of Compliance at SAU, Kevin Carlson said.
"We have a high demand for this training across our campus and we have two certified trainers that are really doing their best to get to all of the people in. I wanted to create something so that we had large opportunity to get large amounts of people trained."
This is the first year they've made the green dot program a full week.
The program circles around three ideas; direct, delegate and distract. The goal is to turn any red dot, meaning harassment or assault, into a green dot by using the tools to stop the situation.
"I had students stop me after that to say we didn't know how good this training was going to be," Carlson said. "I had a student walk across campus with me telling me how great of a session it was and so it was very gratifying and I was very happy to see the success."
Staff Training Sessions
Tuesday, October 15 at 12 p.m. in Gottlieb Conference Center, 2nd floor, Rogalski Center
Wednesday, October 16 at 12 p.m in Gottlieb Conference Center, 2nd floor, Rogalski Center
Student Training Sessions
Tuesday, October 15 at 6 p.m. in McCarthy 013
Wednesday, October 16 at 6 p.m. in McCarthy 013
Thursday, October 17 at 6 p.m. in McCarthy 013
The week will finish up at the SAU football game on Saturday.