Jessie Richards, Assistant Professor of Management at the Eccles School, and her colleagues from across the University of Utah have been awarded a University of Utah VPR Targeted Research Seed Grant to study intimate partner violence. The team includes Richards, along with Chris Linder, Educational Leadership and Policy, Heather Melton, Social and Behavioral Science and Kathryn Fay, Health Sciences.
Campus Intimate Partner Violence (CIPV) impacts significant numbers of students on college and university campuses across the U.S. Unfortunately, college students may not identify their experiences with intimate partner violence as such because the language they use to describe their experiences may differ from educational materials university administrators use to describe CIPV. Additionally, at the University of Utah, the SafeU website and campus-wide messaging rarely even mentions “intimate partner violence” or related terms, including dating and relationship violence, stalking, and coerced sex in relationships. Instead, campus communication primarily focuses on “campus safety” as opposed to relationship violence. Without a shared vocabulary or explicit attention to CIPV, students’ beliefs about dating or relationship violence may furthermore result in the minimization of their own or their peers’ experiences with and reports of harm.
Utilizing case-study methodology influenced by a power-conscious framework, we propose to collect and analyze data over one calendar year for a comprehensive landscape study of how students at the University of Utah understand and discuss CIPV. Our interdisciplinary team of researchers will train undergraduate and graduate students to collect and analyze data, including campus documents, environmental cues, focus groups with students, and interviews with staff. We intend to develop shared or common terminology for discussing CIPV and to provide insight for educators and administrators striving to educate students about CIPV.