Data Journalism Visualization Proposal - The Reality of Our Campus

For my Data Visualization assignment, I would like to write about the statistics of sexual assault on college campuses, including our own. According to RAINN (Rape, Abuse, & Incest National Network), among undergrad students, 26.4% of females and 6.8% of males experience rape or sexual assault. This statistic is frightening, but it becomes more sobering when you consider the experiences of students on our own campus. With the arrival of April, Sexual Assault Awareness Month (SAAM) events have appeared around campus. These efforts are great for issue awareness and survivor support, but is there more action that the university can take to fight this? This issue should be of importance to everyone, and especially to those part of college communities. SAAM presents the perfect time to discuss the reality of these issues on our own campus.

To exemplify this issue on our campus specifically, I will be surveying some of the student population to learn about their experiences on the Slippery Rock campus. I will also be using statistics published by RAINN to demonstrate the issue’s effect on the general population. I will supplement my article with a video interview with Megan McLafferty, the president of the Feminist Majority Leadership Alliance organization on campus. Last semester, she organized and led Take Back The Night, a rally against sexual assault and domestic abuse. She has knowledge of the statistics pertaining to the general public, as well as, the climate on our own campus. In addition to the video interview, I will utilize Flourish to create visuals that display the results of my survey, as well as some of the statistics from RAINN.