ISSUED: 26 April 2017
MEDIA CONTACT: Valerie Owens
SHEPHERDSTOWN, WV — A team of three faculty members and a student from Shepherd University presented findings from the campus Red Flag Campaign at the East Coast Colleges and Social Sciences Association annual conference on April 8 in Herndon, Virginia.
The Red Flag Campaign is a bystander intervention and advocacy project conducted on Shepherd‘s campus during the fall semester with a goal of increasing awareness about the red flags in unhealthy relationships. The research presentations offered solutions to address interpersonal violence using social action.
Dr. Chiquita Howard-Bostic, chair of the Department of Sociology and Geography; Dr. Joseph Robbins, chair of the Department of Political Science; and Christopher Cobian, adjunct criminal justice professor, made a presentation on the outcomes of Shepherd’s Red Flag Campaign. Sociology major, Kristin Leiter, Shepherdstown, presented findings from the campuswide survey titled “Providing Support on College Campuses to Individuals Subjected to Interpersonal Violence.”
Shepherd’s Red Flag bystander intervention campaign included a kickoff lecture by Howard-Bostic to educate the campus community about the warning signs of dating violence. The Shepherd community also decorated red plastic flags with words to encourage individuals to say something when they see unhealthy communication or dating violence. The campaign also included a healthy relationships Instagram stories campaign promoting healthy relationships, an assessment on red flag advocacy by students enrolled in several sociology and political science courses, and a five-day display of the red flags to encourage the campus community to intervene and notice warning signs, or red flags, of dating violence.
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