Weis Center – The Bucknellian

By Mike McPhee

Managing Editor

Gender violence incidents like sexual assault, domestic violence and rape are frequently labeled as “women’s issues,” but men must take an active role in preventing them as well, said a prominent sexual assault awareness speaker on Monday.

Dr. Jackson Katz, who is internationally recognized for his work in gender violence prevention through education of men and boys, gave a lecture titled “More Than a Few Good Men: Lecture on American Manhood and Violence Against Women” in the Weis Center for the Performing Arts on Monday night.

Katz said that men of all ages cannot continue to deny that other men are the perpetrators of almost all gender violence. He called upon men to have the courage to speak out against cultural norms and perceptions of masculinity that support violence against women.

“If we monsterize the men who do the bad behavior, then we can distance ourselves from it … The true wisdom for men is not how distant these people are, but how much we have in common with them,” Katz said.

Gender violence is more widespread than many people realize, Katz said, because the emotional and personal nature of the issue often prevents dialogue from starting about it.

“Statistically speaking, many women in the room have been sexually assaulted. That’s a fact,” he said.

Although women are much more frequently the victims of sexual assault and rape than men, Katz emphasized that gender violence incidents still affect men indirectly. Examples given by Katz include fathers whose daughters were raped, men who have relationship issues when dating women who were emotionally hurt by sexual abuses in the past, and children who grew up in homes with men who abused their mothers.

These “bystanders” who are embedded in the effects of gender violence are the focus of the Mentors in Violence Program (MVP) that Katz co-founded. The program educates people on ways to speak up and prevent the violent acts before they occur.

“The peer culture polices itself,” Katz said.

The event was cosponsored by the Women’s Resource Center and the Interfraternity Council. A large portion of the Greeks on campus attended the event.

“The onus is on us as men to take a strong stance and deal with the issue of sexual assault in a better way. As Greek leaders, we need to lead this movement,” said Michael Higgins ’12, Interfraternity Council President.

Katz also brought clips from some of his educational films that he has made, but the projector system failed and most of the clips could not be shown to the audience. More information about his films is available on his website.

Students who are interested in further discussing gender violence prevention should check the Message Center for more information from the Women’s Resource Center about upcoming readings of Katz’s book, “The Macho Paradox: Why Some Men Hurt Women and How All Men Can Help.”

Famed choreographer, dancer and director Twyla Tharp opened the Bucknell Forum’s new speaker series, “Creativity: Outside the Box,” Tuesday night in an inspired departure from the Forum’s previous topics of politics and global leadership. Instead of focusing on what we as students should know in order to become active and educated citizens, the series highlights the goal to harness and refine the creativity already within us. It is this return to basics and to the arts that we found most satisfying about the new theme.

The new series on creativity puts the focus back on the arts, which have often been neglected in the past. The University boasts a number of creative outlets and resources that few students take advantage of. The Weis Center Series, for example, brings a variety of diverse cultural experiences to campus for the benefit of students and community members alike. The performance center itself is a visual and architectural masterpiece, with its glossy exterior and spiral staircase. Other resources include the Samek Art Gallery, sequestered on the third floor of the Elaine Langone Center and the Sigfried Weis Music Building, which houses a library, keyboard composition laboratories, percussion studios, numerous practice rooms as well as the Natalie Davis Rooke Recital Hall. And then there’s the Craft Center, where students can experiment with new artistic media and direct their creative energies.

The Bucknell Forum’s speaker series revives and affirms interest in the arts—something that is especially important in times of recession, when the arts budget is usually cut first. It is our sincere hope that the Campus Master Plan, with its inclusion of a new arts building, will sustain and bring the arts back to center stage, bringing a more enriching, cultural experience to the University.

But creativity infiltrates all disciplines, not just what is traditionally viewed as the arts. Creativity can be applied in engineering, management, the sciences and the social sciences. As Tharp said in her lecture Tuesday, creativity is most simply a way to turn ideas into reality. The new series reminds us to engage in an interdisciplinary approach to learning, critical thinking and problem solving–a core principle of a liberal arts institution.

The University is, after all, a liberal arts institution, and its mission statement reads, “Bucknell is a unique national university where liberal arts and professional programs complement each other. Bucknell educates men and women for a lifetime of critical thinking and strong leadership characterized by intellectual exploration, creativity and imagination.” The selection of “Creativity: Outside the Box” as the theme of the new Bucknell Forum series accomplishes just this.