November: CAPE’S Monthly Newsletter
By The CAPE Project, Doane University
OCTOBER
Oct. 3 — DEI Meets with Board of Trustees: The Project Director presented the history and impact of the CAPE Project to the Board of Trustees. This marked the next phase of planning to institutionalize the project after the final grant cycle ends in September 2025. Students shared powerful testimonies, and the board provided positive feedback and support.
Oct. 7 — New Equity Compliance Officer Starts: Suzanne Mealer has joined the DEI team at Doane University after an extensive search for the ideal candidate. She has officially started her role and is now serving students. To file a Title IX report, email titleix@doane.edu.
Oct. 24 — Purple Out: Doane University hosted a Day of Purple to honor survivors of domestic violence and remember those who lost their lives.
Pledge Against Violence: Throughout October, students and staff committed to ending violence by signing the Stand Against Violence pledge.
Oct. 25 — Domestic Violence Awareness Proclamation: City Council Member, Tom Beckius, joined Voices of Hope Advocates and the community to read the city’s proclamation for Domestic Violence Awareness Month.
Oct. 31 — BOO! Your Relationship Shouldn’t Be Scary + My Costume is NOT My Consent Campaign: CAPE Peer Educators hosted Halloween events, including a Scooby-Doo-themed game to “unmask” unhealthy relationships and an Instagram campaign emphasizing that Halloween costumes do NOT equal consent.
NOVEMBER
Nov. 2 — Dine 09: Netflix and Chill: Residential Life has hosted Saturday night events all semester, and on November 2nd CAPE took the lead with the first-ever “Netflix and Chill” event. Students analyzed unhealthy relationships and stalking behaviors in the Netflix series YOU, using BINGO cards to identify problematic behaviors throughout the episode.
Nov. 12–14 — TTI Virtual Training: The Office of Violence Against Women (OVW) held its mandatory TTI grant training virtually this year. CAPE invited CCRT members to campus to complete the training together.
Nov. 11th-22nd — No Means November: The Chi Delta sorority hosted its annual November events focused on consent, sexual assault prevention, and survivor support. Activities included Consent Cookies, Support the Silenced, Open Mic Night, and more.
Nov. 21st — Open Mic Night: Partnering with the Chi Delts, CAPE joined an emotional evening where survivors courageously shared their stories, and Chi Delts shared meaningful poetry by survivors.
Nov. 22nd — Wounded Healers: CAPE and the English Department cohosted Wounded Healers, featuring alumna Mandy VanLaningham, a Victim Advocate for Hope Crisis Center. Mandy shared her experiences as an advocate, the impact of her Liberal Arts education, and how to support survivors in daily life.
Semester Wrap-Up: By December 4th, CAPE will have conducted 54 training sessions this semester, concluding an impactful run of educational outreach.
ANONYMOUS STUDENT TESTIMONY
These were just a few of the anonymous student testimonies submitted to let the leadership team and Board of Trustees know about CAPE’s impact on students:
“As a survivor I feel better knowing our University takes these things seriously.”
“I think a campus without CAPE would be a much scarier one, not just because I think cases of harassment and assault would rise, but it would be reported much less because people wouldn’t know where to go or who to go to to get help, which can be so awful and unsafe.”
“As someone going into secondary ed, trauma-informed training is a must for my students. You never know what someone is going to walk through your door with.”
“Knowing that all of my classmates get this training about sexual assault and consent makes me feel so much better.”
“In high school, I dated a boy and I thought I had to do the things he wanted to do because at the time I didn’t really have an education on anything else. Looking back now and using what CAPE has taught me, I have power over my body and I get to say what I want and don’t want to do and that should always be the same with both people in a relationship or whatever partnership one may have. When I got to college and learned more from CAPE, I learned that a) things that have happened to me were not my fault which I WISH someone would have told me earlier in life and b) There is so much more to be talked about in education systems that what we are being taught.”
TTI DETAILS
What Happened? CAPE is required to attend multiple OVW conferences throughout the grant cycle. Last February, the team met in Atlanta, but this November OVW decided to host the conference virtually. CAPE values the opportunity to work with our CCRT members, especially those outside the university, so we brought them to campus and did the virtual training together!
Who Attended?
- Andreea Baker — Director of Health & Wellness
- Cari Emerson — Hope Crisis Center Advocate
- Jenne Lazano — Voices of Hope Advocate
- Luis Sotelo — VP of DEI
- Brian Stutz — Director of Residence Life
- Suzanne Mealer — Equity Compliance Officer
- Russ Hewitt — Public Safety Director
- Melanie Martinez — Crete Police Officer
- Jaden Hilkemann — Director of CAPE
What’d We Learn?
(A lot, but we will keep it simple)
- Prevention efforts cannot be done through a single entity. It requires collaboration across multiple teams & departments; it takes a campus-wide effort.
- Doane University excels, & the CAPE Project has made significant progress since receiving the grant in 2016. This becomes clear when comparing our achievements to other schools that struggle to meet even the minimum grant requirements.
VOICES OF HOPE EVENT
City Council Member Tom Beckius joined Voices of Hope Advocates, partners, community members, and law enforcement at the Voices of Hope office to deliver Lincoln’s official proclamation for Domestic Violence Awareness Month. The city of Lincoln recognizes October as Domestic Violence Awareness Month and expresses gratitude to organizations like Voices of Hope for their critical work supporting survivors and their families. Jaden Hilkemann also attended, emphasizing Voices of Hope as an essential resource and partner for Doane Lincoln students and staff.
The blog posts in Forward. Together. are intended to foster an inclusive community of empathy and curiosity at Doane University by providing a glimpse into various individual identities and worldviews. These are community members’ unique stories and should not be presumed to be the experience of all who share the same identity.
