Students hold walkout

Three CSB+SJU students organized a walkout at CSB on Wednesday that drew a crowd of over 70 people to protest the recent sexual assault allegations on campus and ask administration to respond to their list of demands.

At the walkout, attendees held signs and marched across campus.

The three student organizers of the walkout gave speeches about the purpose of the event and explained their demands.

CSB senior Becca Ringstad, who attended the walkout, said that spirits were high at the event.

“People seemed happy to see each other there and grateful to have this outlet. The first step to creating change is talking about it and creating an environment that says, ‘this matters,’” Ringstad said.

CSB senior Grace Jesch, CSB junior Cecilia McNair and SJU senior Graham Imholte sent a Letter to the Editor to The Record last week, which was published in the March 5 edition.

The letter detailed their plans for the walkout at 12 p.m. on March 11 in the area between Clemens Library and Ardolf Science Center, writing that they “will be walking out to demand a difference.”

According to the letter, the list of demands for the walkout includes: at least one dedicated Title IX coordinator between the two campuses, further RA training including mandatory Title IX/bystander intervention/safe space training, requiring all Johnnie athletes/RAs/senators to participate in the Men as Peacemakers (a nonprofit based in Duluth that focuses on identifying root causes of sexual violence) Be Equal, Safe and Trustworthy (BEST) curriculum and requiring security officers to offer rides back to SJU for Johnnies that miss the last Link bus.

Jesch, McNair and Imholte also put together a petition for their demands, which totaled 215 signatures from current students, alumni and faculty and parents as of Wednesday evening.

Of those signatures, 45 were Johnnies, according to Jesch.

Two SJU students — Brian Kimithi and John Kocher — have been accused of sexual assault this semester in separate incidents.

Kimithi has been charged with first- and third-degree criminal sexual conduct after a woman accused him of raping her in her dorm room on Jan. 27.

President Brian Bruess announced on Jan. 30 that Kimithi was no longer enrolled at SJU.

Kocher, whose enrollment status at SJU hasn’t been confirmed by administration, has been charged with third- and fourth-degree criminal sexual conduct after a woman accused him of engaging in sexual acts without her consent in her dorm room on Dec. 7.

Kocher has recently retained a private lawyer, named in court documents as Eric Newmark.

Newmark did not respond for comment at the time of publication.

The first court appearance for Kocher’s case was held on Monday, March 9.

According to court documents, bail was set at $500,000 without conditions, or $0 with conditions such as no contact with the victim, no alcohol or controlled substance use and an order to not enter any residential housing at St. Ben’s.

A bail hearing for Kimithi’s case was held on March 2.

Jesch said after the campuses learned of these two incidents, she, McNair and Imholte felt compelled to do something about it.

Jesch was a first-year when news broke of the alleged sex competition that took place in St. Patrick Hall at SJU in 2021, which resulted in a walkout with several demands, planned by the Institute for Women’s Leadership.

She said the IWL walkout inspired the one they organized this week. In her first two years on campus, Jesch worked with Men as Peacemakers to lead trainings at CSB+SJU for their BEST curriculum.

She said many of these trainings were offered at the time for students who wanted to be eligible to live off campus to incentivize them to participate.

In April of 2023, The Record covered a federal violence prevention grant that was not renewed at CSB+SJU.

Administration said then that they attempted to renew the grant (which came from the federal Office on Violence Against Women to fund sexual assault prevention resources), but were denied.

At the time, Dani Lindner was the violence prevention coordinator at CSB+SJU, but her job was unable to be sustained after grant funding ran out on Dec. 21, 2022.

The institutions funded Lindner’s position through May 2023.

Jesch said she worked closely with Lindner and was upset by the funding end that eventually led to Lindner’s exit and other program limitations.

“It was disappointing. [Lindner] was an incredible voice for sexual assault prevention and did a lot of great work,” Jesch said. “Unfortunately, when we lost the grant, we lost a lot of that work. I remember being in conversations at that time about why prevention work is really important, why it’s worth funding. At the time, it was my understanding that administration decided to just focus on using existing resources.”

Associate Provost for Student Success Mary Geller told The Record in 2023 that the end of the grant would mean that CSB+SJU needed to prioritize and reorganize projects that were bolstered with grant funds.

When asked this week about what has happened with these projects since then, Geller told The Record that training and prevention efforts continued, taking effectiveness into account when prioritizing programs.

“Prevention education continues to rest in the Well-Being Center with Sally Sands as [the] staff oversight person. Training continues to be completed by primarily the Deans of Students and Title IX deputies,” Geller said via email. “We had also worked with Men as Peacemakers for new student orientation and some additional training with residential life, athletics, etc., but the feedback was not positive, the costs were challenging, and we decided to move in a different direction. We had found that the program was not having a substantial impact and the cost of working with Men as Peacemakers could not be sustained.”

Geller also told The Record this week that the Departments of Justice and Education under President Donald Trump have been less communicative about grant opportunities for similar programs, but the schools are ensuring they meet federal and state standards and actively reviewing practices and policies every year.

On Monday, Geller sent an email to all students addressing the letter to the editor that Jesch, McNair and Imholte wrote last week.

In the email, Geller clarified the current structure of Title IX coordinators on campus — the primary coordinator at CSB is Dean of Students Jody Terhaar, and Dean of Students Amanda Erdman at SJU.

She outlined existing training for RAs and reiterated that students are expected to follow the late-night weekend bus cutoff of 2 a.m. to “avoid being stranded away from their home campus.”

Geller also described previous and upcoming training sessions and events targeted at addressing sexual violence, writing that “numerous educational programs are offered throughout the year, though attendance has varied…It is hoped that, moving forward, more students will take part in these opportunities.”

Geller said that the schools will continue reviewing these programs to identify areas for improvement, and that “feedback from students remains an essential part of this work.”

When asked about her reaction to Geller’s message, Jesch said that she welcomes collaboration with administration and hopes to clear up any confusion about their demands.

When it comes to the Title IX coordinators, Jesch said their demand means that they want a designated coordinator whose only job is to run those programs, so they have more time and capacity to dedicate to these issues as opposed to existing staff members taking on the duties.

Other demands came from issues that Jesch said weren’t resolved after Pat Hall, like asking for rides back to SJU for students who miss the last bus.

“We wanted to spark a conversation about what dynamic is created by having two separate campuses where the women’s campus is in close proximity to the bars,” Jesch said. “St. John’s students frequently end up missing the last Link and asking friends if they can spend the night. I understand that’s against policy, but we also just have to reflect on the real experience of students who are living on our campuses and understand the social pressures that women might face in those situations to allow someone to stay over. I don’t think it’s an adequate response, nor realistic, to just say, ‘that’s against policy, don’t do that.’”

Jesch said she and the other two organizers are in conversation with Geller to set up a meeting to address their concerns.

The response they sent to Geller after the campus-wide email was also published this week as an opinion piece in The Record.

Overall, Jesch said that many of her concerns come from feeling like recent administration communications related to the assaults do not address key student perspectives and how violence happens on college campuses, something she hopes will change.

“The concern is that the climate that allows one person to do something could also facilitate the same behavior from others. That’s where the fear we’re feeling comes from. The frustration comes from knowing that this one incident doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It’s part of a broader experience on campus,” Jesch said. “When I see things like, ‘only let your own guests into residence halls,’ to me that echoes a real misconception about sexual assault, which is that the people that perpetrate it are scary, or unknown…On campuses, most of the time, it’s someone you know and trust. I don’t see that understanding reflected in these communications.”