Originally from Western New York, Debbie Owens has worked in higher education for more than 30 years, and has previously worked at Potsdam College, D’Youville University and Canisius University. She began by working in residence life, but started doing Title IX work in the late 90s at D’Youville.
How did you first begin doing Title IX work?
At that point in time, if you needed someone to do that work, usually one of the VPs would just say “tag, you’re it.” I was doing some of the work anyway because, as is the case with most campuses, a lot of it happens within your residential population because they’re on campus 24 hours a day, seven days a week. I was doing it unofficially, in terms of handling some of the incidents that occurred in my residence halls, so I think he just felt that it made sense.
At the time, there was no training that went with it, because it was just coming up and being developed. It was like all of a sudden everybody realized we had this amendment to the Constitution that said we were supposed to being doing this, but we haven’t really been doing it in any structured form.
What do you like about your job?
My job is extremely purposeful. Obviously it’s not what I would call fun, but it filled a void that we were not taking care of. I can remember back to my days as a college student when you could walk into the Dean of Students’ office, say you were sexually assaulted, and they would start asking you questions like “were you drinking?” or “was the other person drinking?” Then if you said yes to both of those questions, they kind of threw up their hands and said they couldn’t figure it out.
I kind of grew with Title IX, because when I was first “tagged” to be Title IX coordinator, we didn’t have all these regulations. As Title IX progressed, and more regulations came into play and more structure was set up, I grew with that, because I was there from the foundation.
What brought you to Hamilton?
I really thought that D’Youville would be my last institution. I was there for a long time, but I lost my job during COVID, as many people did. Then, as we were coming out of COVID, I saw that Canisius was looking for a Title IX Coordinator, so applied and I got the job at Canisius. I thought Canisius would be my last job, but then last January, I received an email saying that Hamilton had looked at my resume and LinkedIn, and it sounded like it aligned with the position that you guys were trying to fill here.
When I read about Hamilton, there were three things that really drew me to saying I would at least consider it. I love the fact that we are fully residential for all four years. The whole reason I went into higher education was residence life, so that really speaks to me. I also like the fact that it brings me back to D3 athletics, because I love athletics, but D1 athletics has a whole different mentality. At D3, you are truly a student-athlete. Finally, I love that fact that it brought me back to what I consider to be a true campus. The last two campuses that I’ve been on have been urban. We had a plot of grass and that’s campus, because everything else is city streets.
How are you liking Hamilton so far?
I really am enjoying it. I’ve been extremely impressed by the students. When I talk to students and train them, I try to make it not as boring, especially since a lot of the students have to hear it over and over again. I appreciate the fact that so many of the groups I’ve spoken to have asked questions and have wanted to know more, which is not usually what I was getting from students in the past.
I’ve been really impressed by the student groups that have reached out to me to work with them, either on programming or training. I really have been impressed by the student body here, so I’ve really enjoyed getting to meet some of the students, and, as I’ve been telling folks as I train them, I’m really trying to normalize people talking to me on campus.
