Campus & Community Work

Not Alone @ The Beach 

Supported since 2015 by an ongoing grant from the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services, NATB is the primary source of cutting-edge gender and power-based violence prevention education, engagement and outreach to CSULB students, faculty, and staff. Dr. Ahrens and select members of her research team have been involved in a variety of efforts led by the NATB team.

Coordinated Community Response Team

Dr. Ahrens is a participating member of NATB's Coordinated Community Response Team which brings together faculty, staff, students, and administrators to provide a more coordinated, campuswide response to power-based violence.    

Faculty Guidelines for Responding to Student Disclosures

Working closely with the NATB team, Dr. Ahrens created a set of guidelines to help faculty respond better to student disclosures of sexual misconduct and other non-academic challenges.  These guidelines were vetted by the Title IX Office, university counsel, and other key stakeholders and are currently being disseminated to faculty throughout campus via the following video.  More in-depth trainings about responding to student disclosures will take place every semester.       

Prevention Working Group

Dr. Ahrens is also part of the NATB Prevention Working Group.  This working group is comprised of faculy and staff from Counseling, Health Services, and related departments who are interested in developing more robust sexual misconduct prevention programming on campus.  Members of the working group have identified several evidence-based risk reduction, bystander intervention, and community education programs that they hope to implement and coordinate on the CSULB campus next Fall.         

   

Academic Alliance for Survivor Choice in Reporting Policies

Dr. Ahrens is the co-founder of the Academic Alliance for Survivor Choice in Reporting Policies, a consortium of over 100 faculty and graduate student experts in the field of sexual misconduct who are working to foster reporting policies that prioritize  survivor choice and autonomy.  Recognizing that mandatory supporting is preferable to mandatory reporting policies, this consortium promotes public outreach and education on alternatives to universal reporting policies that have proliferated on campuses throughout the United States.   

 

Public Policy Outeach and Education  

In conjunction with her work with the Not Alone @ The Beach (NATB) and the Academic Alliance for Survivor Choice in Reporting (ASC) teams, Dr. Ahrens has co-authored several letters to public officials about pitfalls and solutions for Title IX policies.

Letter to the US Department of Education recommending mandatory supporting rather than mandatory reporting policies as part of Title IX legislation.

Letters to the California Senate Education Committee,  the California Assembly Committee on Higher Education, and the CSU Board of Trustees  regarding problems and proposed solutions for Title IX policies within the CSU system.