Recent W&M grads to tour campuses to educate college men

WILLIAMSBURG, Va. (AP) – Four recent graduates of the College of William and Mary are heading to campuses across the country this school year to educate male students about rape prevention.

For the next nine months, the four will live in a recreational vehicle as they travel to colleges and universities as peer educators for the One in Four Group. The group’s tour is sponsored by the National Organization of Men’s Outreach for Rape Education, also known as No More, Inc.

“Not only was it a great chance to travel around the country,” said John Mallory, who is deferring plans to teach high school, “it’s a chance to dedicate a year of my life to something I really cared about.”

Nicholas Reiter, 21, is deferring law school for a year and Matt Roosevelt, 22, will attend medical school a year later than he planned.

“I felt it was something I was called to do,” said Will Carter, 23, who said he’s delaying plans to enter the working world.

All four men knew women in college who were raped.

When Reiter learned that someone he knew had been raped, he first thought the rapist deserved to be punished physically, which many say is a typical male reaction. What he learned talking to rape survivors was that they don’t want physical retaliation.

“The last thing a woman wants is for you to beat up her attacker,” Reiter said. She’s either going to fear that he might take it out on her if you do that to him or he might rape her again.”

The peer education tour is the beginning of a new phase for No More, which was developed by John Foubert, an assistant professor of education at William and Mary and the group’s president.

Eleven years ago, Foubert developed an anti-rape program that targeted men. He then created One in Four, based on numbers that show that one in four college women report surviving rape or attempted rape after their 14th birthday.

The program’s goal is to educate men on how to help a sexual assault survivor, which also decreases the likelihood that the men who are familiar with the program will be perpetrators themselves.

The first One in Four group started at the University of Maryland in 1996. Foubert later formed No More to set up more One in Four chapters. Over the years, chapters started at 16 schools, including the University of Virginia, the College of William and Mary, and Washington and Lee and James Madison universities.

With donations as little as $10 and as large as $50,000, No More has raised $103,745 so far toward their current goal of $150,000.

Schools that have already signed contracts for the group to make presentations include Rhode Island College and the University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown. Another 150 schools are considering whether to invite the group and pay an honorarium of between $1,500 to $2,000 to help cover expenses.

Information from: Daily Press