Students in a Sociology of Changing Gender Roles class will present to the staff members of the Kent State Sexual Assault Response team, the Kent State Police Department, the Women’s Center and the Office of Health Promotion for Sexual Assault Awareness month Thursday.

The event will be held in room 167 of Kent Hall at 9:30 a.m. Thursday.

According to the KSU Sexual Assault Response Team website, nationally, one in six women are sexually assaulted during their lifetime and college women are four times as likely to be sexually assaulted as are other women.

In an email to select staff, members of the class suggested future actions for Kent State to take to prevent sexual assault.

“Our class has developed a multitude of propositions for furthering the education of Kent students and making resources more available for those in need of information,” said Kara Bindus, senior English major, in an email to staff. “These suggestions include well-advertised presentations that are held regularly, promoted by organizations and departments across the campus, and are available to all students, potential speakers including local and national individual recommendations to better present information and statistics via websites and ways to further engage student awareness and participation of SART and other programs supporting our cause.”

Bindus said she hopes the event will shed light on the shame associated with sexual assault and promote change.

“Society today is afraid to talk about this subject,” Bindus said. “I think making changes to the atmosphere on campus will help make changes throughout the country.”

Senior sociology major Kara Whaley said she hopes the event will encourage programs on campus to prevent sexual assault.

“We want to have groups educating people on what sexual assault and rape are, what they’re not and how to prevent them,” Bindus said “We want to reach out to these groups and show them that there is a need for these programs because they have the power to promote them.”

Contact Drew Parker at [email protected].