I have been a member of Survivors Making Activism and Radical Transformation (SMART) since its inception three years ago when Charlotte Bennet ’17 held the Title IX office accountable for the mismanagement and misrepresentation of her Title IX reports and the points her perpetrator received in 2016. Since then, SMART has been working tirelessly to not only continue to hold the College accountable, but make the larger campus community aware of the issue of sexual assault and create a space for survivors on campus to have a voice.

Last Tuesday, SMART continued our goal to educate the campus and support survivors: we set up our art installation outside of Howard Diner on Martin’s Way; the installation represented the Clery Report on the number of reported rapes on campus. This report is different from the Harassment and Sexual Misconduct Board (HSMB) report that we get from Title IX because it is a federally-mandated report. The Clery Report is confusing to read and understand, which led to the misreading of the number of reported rapes on campus and SMART’s subsequent correction email.

While many students and SMART’s leadership agreed that no matter the number, one rape on campus was too many, the Office of Community Standards (which handles Title IX) was quick to latch on to the mistake and insert themselves into our narrative. Director of Community Standards Catherine Berryman sent a long-winded email filled with legal jargon, making what we interpreted as the assumption that not only were we uneducated activists, but also that an activist group in support of — and made up of — survivors was in need of the assistance of the Title IX Coordinator, without having seen or engaged with the installation.

While she and Dayna Campbell mean well and are both new to campus, many students — particularly seniors — remember the years in which we experienced distrust and false information provided by previous Title IX Coordinators. In addition, there is a historical and institutional issue with Title IX offices nationally not fulfilling their duties. They often do little to stay trauma-informed and actively support survivors, as seen in countless cases across the country and highlighted in documentaries like

The Hunting Ground

. As an organization, we implicitly cannot and will not trust anyone who holds the position of Title IX Coordinator until there is active work put in — independently — to be trauma-informed, intersectional, restorative, and healing-focused. Until then, SMART and survivor organizations nation-wide will hesitate to trust institutions and Title IX.

SMART continues to believe, and will always believe, that our organization is better off self-educating than relying on the institutional structure that has perpetrated many of the mishandlings, misrepresentations, and retraumatization of many of the survivors on this campus, no matter who holds the title of Title IX Coordinator/Community Standards Director. Beyond that, I personally have been working with SMART and learning about these laws for three years. I trained as a rape crisis counselor in the state of Massachusetts and attended online seminars with rape crisis centers and advocacy groups. The mistake in the email was made not from a lack of education but from a lack of clarity in the report, an issue that is not just here at Hamilton, but also across the nation.

While the Office of Community Standards had focused on the very easy mistake made by SMART, students were able to see the very real message of the art installation: we have a problem on this campus and we need to start humanizing the numbers. It is not just thirteen reports. Those are thirteen people who many of us may know but do not know how to help or support. And those are just the reported numbers.

As a survivor myself, I feel it is deeply healing to personify the statistics. To create people using the actual outline of my own body and lay them out on Martin’s Way reminds people: “We are not numbers. We exist. You walk by us every day. Start caring.” Knowing that my physical body, which was once violated and is still a daily battleground, was able to help spread a beautiful and powerful message to the campus to show survivors that SMART sees them — truly sees them — is more important to me than I can possibly put into words.

One of the most important things for a survivor to be set on the path to healing is being given power and control back in their lives. There is nothing more powerful than using my own body with the help of my beautiful fellow SMART chairs to create such a vital message for the campus. I went back to my room at 6:45 AM after creating the installation and cried tears of joy from the experience.

SMART will continue to use activism and education to teach the campus at large about the prevalent issue of sexual assault here and across the nation and how to support a friend in need. Most importantly, SMART will continue to be a site of politicizing the healing process for survivors, returning the agency back to survivors in ways that create conversation and community. SMART will always see survivors because many of us are.

We believe you and we will always be here for you.