Violence prevention grant not renewed, future uncertain
The Department of Justice did not renew a violence prevention grant that had been funding CSB+SJU's violence prevention coordinator, currently held by Dani Lindner. Recently, administration has said they are unable to allocate funds to continue this position.
A grant from the federal Department of Justice (DOJ) for violence prevention at CSB+SJU was not renewed for 2023, leaving an air of uncertainty for what the lack of funding will mean for these prevention programs in the coming years.
This type of grant is distributed by the Office on Violence Against Women (OVW), created by the Violence Against Women Act of 1994. CSB+SJU had previously received a discretionary grant that is geared specifically towards colleges and universities, which has lasted the past three years. The CSB+SJU administration attempted to renew the grant but was denied in the fall of this year. According to the description for this specific grant from the DOJ website, “the funding supports activities that develop and strengthen trauma informed victim services and strategies to prevent, investigate and respond to sexual assault, domestic violence, dating violence and stalking.”
Dani Lindner is the violence prevention coordinator at CSB+SJU, whose job was made possible through the OVW grant. Now that the grant funding no longer exists, Lindner’s position doesn’t either.
“The grant funding for my position ended Dec. 31, 2022,” she said via email. “The institutions were able to secure funding to temporarily extend my position through May 15…[but] it is my understanding there was not funds available through the institutional budgets to create a permanent position.”
Extending Lindner’s position through the end of the semester allowed CSB+SJU to take some time to transition between relying on the grant to fund campus sexual assault prevention programs to finding in-house sources of funding. Lindner said that, at this point in time, it’s hard to know what the end of her position will mean for the future. She does know that her work, in particular with the Coordinated Community Response Team (CCRT), provided several assault survivors on campus with support and resources and should therefore be considered a success.
“The grant allowed our institutions to accomplish many great things,” she said. “The student body has shown a strong interest in continuing conversations related to prevention, awareness and response, and they will be the voice to continue to keep this important work in front of the institutions.”
Associate Provost for Student Success Mary Geller said the grant renewal being denied was a surprise but that the situation wasn’t unique to CSB+SJU this year.
“There’s a lot of institutions who have had it previously that didn’t get it. It kind of felt like we had the rug pulled out from under us, because it had such a good track record of being renewed,” Geller said. “We felt like we were meeting all of the criteria that they asked for…It wasn’t anything we did or didn’t say; they just weren’t renewing as many this time.”
Geller said that in addition to funding Lindner’s work, the grant allowed CSB+SJU to further sexual assault prevention programs like Project Embrace and the BEST Curriculum. She said that the end of the grant means that unfortunately there is a need for reorganizing these programs.
“We’re prioritizing projects that we have done with this grant,” she said. “We’re figuring out who is going to be taking the lead on some of those things now and what things are going to have to go away because we don’t have the money.”
Despite the issues with funding, Geller said administration takes sexual assault prevention work seriously, and will continue to work to find ways to keep successful programs going.
“We’ll remain committed to this work,” she said. “This doesn’t change our commitment; it just changes our capacity.”
CSB sophomore Grace Jesch works closely with Lindner and the BEST Curriculum and expressed her disappointment in the grant not being renewed, since it allows for her to continue her work to proactively prevent assault.
“It’s frustrating because 26.4% of women are sexually assaulted during their time in college,” Jesch said. “We as a campus have to deal with that number and other statistics like it; it’s just the decision of [whether] we are going to work on the prevention end or on the response end.”
Jesch said she hopes students will continue to interact with these prevention programs on campus as long as they still exist, with or without the grant. She said the quick turnover of students made Lindner’s position even more vital to these prevention efforts, but continued involvement could help keep these programs going without her.
“It’s hard to keep these programs going when students graduate and we cycle through people, and that’s why having a long-term position is so valuable,” Jesch said. “I would love to see more students be trained facilitators for this work, whether that’s with the BEST program or with CERTS, and hopefully see more Johnnies involved in this issue.”
Jesch mentioned that after events like the sexual misconduct allegations that came out of St. Patrick Hall in 2021, these issues are on the forefront of students’ minds, something that will be necessary to making progress in sexual assault prevention as campus programs change without the grant.
“What happened [in Pat Hall] was not unique; it just became a bigger issue in campus consciousness. I think it’s important that we organize and work together on this issue while we have some momentum,” Jesch said. “It’s not just signing a petition and going to a protest and then it’s over. I really feel like this is the top of the priority list in terms of creating a safer, more equitable campus culture that ultimately benefits all of us.”
