New organization hosts activist Koestner

Over the past year, the SMU community has hosted former presidential candidates, raised over $100,000 toward pediatric HIV and AIDS research, and put on one of the largest holiday lights extravaganzas in the metroplex.

Now, the university can boast “Men with Integrity” as well.

The recently chartered organization, started by junior Corporate Communications and Public Affairs major Dale Vaughn, hopes to end sexual assault from right here on the Hilltop.

“We can’t stop assault or acquaintance rape when it happens,” Vaughn explained, “but we can infiltrate the perceptions of our culture and make rape as wrong as slavery.”

Starting with an original membership of four — junior Matt Houston, sophomore Denver Nicks, first-year Drew Washington and himself — Vaughn has seen his fledgling rise from the ground up. Men with Integrity can now claim 13 members, including two faculty members (Dr. Jim Caswell and Dr. Courtney Aberle) and two women (Aberle and junior Melissa Sweat).

With these influential men (and women) by his side, Vaughn hopes to place the blame of

sexual assault in the hands of its proper owner.

“We have to make men responsible,” he said.

“Men are peer group oriented; each male has a role model. We get those role models, and we make sure they outwardly support this cause.”

This week, which is Sexual Assault Awareness Week, Vaughn and his colleagues will be actively preaching Men with Integrity around campus. From sandwich boards to t-shirts to a guest speaker, these pioneers hope to be the first in a long line of students taking a stand against rape.

“We think about this as an organized movement,” Vaughn said. “It will start here, and it will spread to other campuses, other cities, and hopefully will span our culture’s consciousness.”

Sound ambitious? According to Vaughn, it’s already begun.

“At West Texas A&M they are beginning a Men With Integrity group with the skeleton that we’ve started,” he explained, “and I have been offered a chance to talk to Katie Couric about this movement sometime in the next few months.”

Tuesday evening, Men with Integrity hosted Katie Koestner, the nation’s most renowned speaker on sexual assault, in the Hughes Trigg Student Center Ballroom.

Koestner began her story by recounting the events leading up to what she called, “the worst night of my life.”

Peter took her out to a French restaurant, she explained, and ordered two glasses of champagne.

“I told him I didn’t drink,” she said, though Peter eventually pressured her into consuming part of the beverage.

“In my mind, I thought I had just given in to two sips of champagne,” Koestner recalled with a somber expression.

“I can definitely say I was uncomfortable,” she said of their first few minutes alone in her room, “but, at 18, I was definitely not assertive.”“Naïve is an excellent word,” Koestner continued. “You think you can like someone, be alone in a room with that person and not have sex.

“I was thinking, ‘I’m trapped by a guy I really like’; I wasn’t thinking about rape.”

But it is this lack of awareness that the Men with Integrity hope to change.

The group can be seen each day this week by the flagpole, distributing information and recruiting men to join in their stance.

This fall, Men with Integrity will be organizing a “Rock Against Rape” concert, in addition to an ongoing self-defense course for women on campus.

“We are a group of men standing against sexual assault,” Vaughn explained.

“However long it takes, we’re going to stand against it.”

Group hopes to educate impressionable men

Think of four women. For example, your girlfriend, cousin, mom and next-door neighbor; one of them will be raped or possibly already has been.

Dale Vaughn, founder and director of Men With Integrity, says the fact that one in four women have been sexually assaulted is “too much.” Vaughn, a junior at Southern Methodist University, says that helping to prevent sexual assault is his calling.

“There comes a point when a man stands up and decides that someone has to stop this,” Vaughn said. After being sent to a leadership program, Leadershape, through SMU’s InterFraternity Council last year, Vaughn realized that he was able to take this vision that he has had since age 16, and make it happen.

“Too many of the people I love have been sexually assaulted,” Vaughn said.

Dallas is fourth in the nation for the number of rape victims, so knowing someone who has been affected is hardly impossible.

Men With Integrity, originally named Men Against Sexual Assault, is holding weekly

meetings, has six members and is growing. The group held a large event on Feb 21. NFL football legend Don McPherson, who played with the Philadelphia Eagles, has become one of the most recognized public speakers on sexual assault issues.

Since the lecture with McPherson in February, numerous people, all interested in becoming a part of Men With Integrity, have approached Vaughn.

Thomas Greene, a junior at SMU, was one of those men, saying Men With Integrity is “a great idea in the first place, and I think that it will be especially good for the Greek system with at least a few of the founding members being fraternity men.”

Greene, who is the current Kappa Alpha Order president and club lacrosse team president, said he was raised with a “strong set of ethics and subsequently joining the stereotypical ‘southern gentleman’” fraternity of KA, all leading to his evident respect for women.

Because Men With Integrity is the first ever sexual assault group on the SMU campus, the noteworthy advisors and members have a weighty responsibility. Similar sexual assault groups have organized at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth and University of Texas-Arlington, but are sparse nationally. The group at SMU is seeking continued publicity on campus by making black shirts with “Men With Integrity” printed in white. “If I saw a guy walking around campus with such a simple shirt, I would definitely want to know what the hype was,” Vaughn said.

With a full slate of campus known members leading Men With Integrity, the group is quickly catching attention. Dr. Curt McIntyre, a psychology professor with 30 years at SMU, and Dr. Courtney Aberle, who works in the Women’s Center and has connections around the United States, serve on the group, or steering committee. Dr. Jim Caswell, who is an unofficial advisor, is one of the biggest supporters with finding various speakers from campuses nationwide to help promote the group, according to Vaughn.

“In a time where women and men are at their sexual peaks and living in such a close proximity, it is important,” says Vaughn, “to reach a large group of people about sexual assault.” February’s event brought athletes and new IFC members together for the event to discuss the lasting effects of sexual assault.

Aberle said she loved the concept for the group when Vaughn approached her last year. “I thought it would be helpful to have a male advisor as well as myself,” Aberle said, “so that a masculine viewpoint would be well represented.”

Aberle said, “It is incredibly powerful for men to be taking a stand on a social problem which has traditionally been viewed as only a ‘women’s issue.’”

Vaughn said, “It’s not socially acceptable to be a rape victim. Even though the [victim] did nothing wrong, [he or she] still feels bad about it.
It’s a double standard.”

Vaughn said it seems as though men are looked upon as a “tough guy” or a “lady’s man,” when really that man is a bigger coward than anyone. “There’s no middle ground, you’re either against rape, or you’re for it,” Vaughn said. “Men should feel the duty to protect women as they would their sisters or girlfriends or mothers, because that’s what they are.”

It is no surprise that sexual assault ruins lives. What is said to the victim moments, days or weeks after a rape, can have a lasting effect on recovery, according to Vaughn.

That is why educating everyone on sexual assault issues is important. “Secondary survivors” are those close to the victim who experience similar and/or parallel emotions to victims. “They need to know how to deal; it can be psychologically damaging [if not dealt appropriately],” Vaughn said, “everyone needs to learn how to treat a rape victim and build up his or her trust,” according to Vaughn.

Vaughn was raised watching John Wayne and other “honest, standup, respectful guys.” When men were being sent overseas to protect their country in World War II, Vaughn has to ask himself who is going to stand-up for what we believe in today? He fears those men who can walk around with their “heads held high” after they have sexually assaulted a woman. Vaughn feels as though popular and prominent figures, especially on campus, are not always respectful towards others, especially in sexual situations.

Aberle said that the founding members of Men With Integrity are courageous for breaking the silence surrounding sexual violence. “[The group is] modeling the qualities to which all men should aspire.”

Because SMU is group oriented, Vaughn is working to reach the masses on campus. “You figure out who everyone looks up to and work to influence those guys,” Vaughn said.

Greene said he wants to let the women of SMU and those in the surrounding Dallas know of the ambitious young men who want to make a difference. “[We] are genuinely concerned about [the victim’s] safety,” Greene said. “We want them to know that we’ll do any and everything we can to educate the rest of the men (and women) on campus about the true reality of the situation.”

Aberle said it is her hope that the group will “begin to change the culture at SMU such that date rape, sexual harassment, relational violence and sexism will become socially unacceptable among men.”