Focus: The DePaul Community

I have been a part of the DePaul community for three years now.  This is still a new community for me but a community that I hold near and dear to my heart.  When I started at DePaul I had no idea that I would be joining such an amazing community of people and many other communities based off of the larger community of DePaul. The DePaul community is composed of many different people from many different backgrounds.  It is amazing the amount of intersectionality that takes place on campus.  One of the coolest parts about this community of people is that everyone that is a part of it cares about their education, furthering other students, faculty and staff's education and is generally passionate about pursuing knowledge.  That is why this community is so importnat to me.  Yet, that is also the reason the lack of knowledge about Sexual Assault awareness is so eye opening to me.

I had no idea that the DePaul community of people would teach me so much about what it is like to be a community member, an activist, a leader, a learner and so much more.   The DePaul community has introduced me to some of the most wonderful people I have ever met. But I was also extremely unaware about the lack of education the DePaul community knows about Sexual Assault.  I assumed that students would be socially aware of this subject based on the basic knowledge they learn from orientation, or common hour in their Discover or Explore Chicago classes or with the knowledge they brought to school from their past communities.  This is a community is also heavily impacted by sexual violence.  Being a school and community that is composed of mostly young adults it is crucial to be aware of what sexual assault.  Currently DePaul has had a rise of Sexual Assaults in the community. It is also important to note that most of the sexual assaults go unreported due to lack of knowledge of what a sexual assault is or being scared to report or simply because the sexual assault took place off campus and therefore it isn’t recognized. 

-Samantha Bentson 


I wanted to focus on the DePaul Community for my final project because so many members of this community that I know and love have been affected by the issue of sexual violence.  Whether the individual is a survivor, bystander, friend, or peer there is a certain amount of isolation and shame around this issue.  Many people internalize the violence for a long time which can be damaging to the individual's well being, relationships, and how comfortable they feel engaging with issues in the community.  It is a unique opportunity that I have to grow within this community and reach out to those that feel isolated and/or misunderstood.

This community is important to me because I do not know where I would be today if it weren’t for the groups of people that I have been privileged enough to grow and heal with.  These communities have helped me to see that there is truly hope for a better world, but we cannot sit back and wait for someone else to create it; we are all a valuable piece of the transformations that need to take place.  I value this community because it can be a safe space to talk about our experiences of how sexual violence has affected us, but it is also a group that can discuss sex and intimacy in a positive light, which seem to be separated so often. 

Through my experiences within the DePaul community and in Chicago, I have been able to recognize that there are many different paths and ways of healing.  Just because there is something that was extremely healing and useful for me, does not mean that it will work for someone else.  I have also witnessed how people cope with things in very different ways, but feel like they are completely alone in these situations.  I have been able to learn from these experiences and with this community, which is why people are not required to share if they attend the workshop.  Community members can come to share, listen, and/or support each other.

-Emily Edwards