A series of events next week seeks to educate about sexual assault on campus.

This past Saturday afternoon, students received a Public Safety Crime Bulletin through their USF Connect email which informed them that a male USF student was “accused of raping a non-USF female, which allegedly occurred Friday night at an off-campus location.” After turning the case over to the San Francisco Police Department, Dan Lawson, director of public safety, said on Monday afternoon that there was a chance that “This case may not be charged.”

In the semester ensuing four alleged counts of rape by and against USF students, the wounded community took a moment to heal last week with a series of events aimed at sexual violence awareness and prevention. Major events in the series included an evening event called Create Against Rape, the Take Back the Night march, the Clothesline Project, an art display in the Crossroads Gallery, and a display called These Hands Don’t Hurt outside of the Health Promotion Services office.

After a tumultuous semester for the USF Community, it looks as if we will soon be getting our very own Women’s Resource Center (WRC), dubbed the “Peer Educators Women's Resource Center (PEWRC)” that will be turned over to students to operate.

The Rape Is Not an Isolated Incident forum decided to create a space for the USF community to come together in an open dialogue and talk about the issue of sexual violence on campus. The intention of the forum was to allow concerned citizens to speak on whatever they wanted to and in whatever format. One of the main topics of discussion was concerning the Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) program at USF which has received a lot of criticism.

University of San Francisco students have made their outcry about the recent allegations of rape and assault on campus heard. A group of student activists have organized and released a clear message: rape is not an isolated incident. In other words, this most recent and highly publicized case of a USF senior Ryan Caskey being charged with four counts of rape and aggravated assault is not the first incident of this nature that has occurred at USF.