'Stories for Social Change' creates vision wall to represent a world without sexual assault

<p>The vision walls&mdash;located in the West Union and the Marketplace&mdash;are made up of&nbsp;written phrases, sentences or ideas about what a world without sexual assault would look like.</p>

The vision walls—located in the West Union and the Marketplace—are made up of written phrases, sentences or ideas about what a world without sexual assault would look like.

While many Duke classes are focusing on problem sets and midterms, one class is working to increase awareness of sexual assault on campus.

“Stories for Social Change"—a 21-person class taught by Lynden Harris, an instructor of theater studies, and Madeleine Lambert, Trinity '08 and a professional actress—has spearheaded the creation of a “vision wall." These walls are covered with sticky notes on which students and faculty have written phrases, sentences or ideas about what a world without sexual assault would look like. There are currently two vision walls on campus, one in the West Union and one in Marketplace on East Campus.

“The wall reaches people who think sexual violence is perhaps peripheral to their lives,” Harris said. “It answers the question of ‘how do we not just preach to the choir?’”

The initiative began two years ago as a way to speak out against sexual assault during the red zone—the time period between the start of school and Thanksgiving when the rates of sexual assault among first-years are particularly high. The vision wall is supported by the advocacy group Hidden Voices, which is directed by Harris. Now in its third year, the project has spread to colleges across the country, including New York University, Washington University in St. Louis and the University of Hawaii.

"The long term goal is to end sexual violence, which we think is both reachable and teachable," Lambert said. "We would love to have campuses all around the country do this."

She noted that the project began because she and Harris wanted to come up with an easy and inexpensive way for universities and colleges to think more deeply about the problem of sexual assault. 

Sophomore Jennifer Hong, a member of the class, explained that the wall began with the class compiling about 20 different responses from campus organizations, which they wrote on the sticky notes and posted on the wall. Now, so many passersby have contributed that the organizers are struggling to create more space.

The wall will be up for two weeks and at the project’s end, students will read the responses “almost like a poem” during an event, said sophomore Miriam Levitin, another student in the class. 

“We’re also sending around online surveys to represent more voices that might not see the wall and taking their responses and putting them up,” she said.

Junior Michelle Chen, who is also in the class, explained that she hopes the wall will start conversations around campus and help stop victim-blaming.

The students are working to increase the wall’s visibility through social media, Hong said, using Twitter to post tweets of responses that have been written on the wall. The wall has also been featured on Duke’s Instagram and Snapchat accounts.

Harris said that she thinks the initiative has been successful because it is so easy to take part in, requiring only a pen, a sticky note and a few minutes of a person’s time.

Next year, Harris said she hopes that the vision wall can expand to all 50 states. Hidden Voices is also partnering this year with a school in India and hopes to connect with more universities and international students, Lambert noted.

“Having it spread nationally is like having us all united under a vision, and the vision is a world without sexual violence,” Levitin said. “Through having this wall be visible, we’re hoping to make it become a reality.”

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