Xpan and University Of Lethbridge recognized for media of Understanding and Responding to Sexual Violence

uLeth is actively committed to building a safer and stronger community for its faculty, students, and staff. This commitment includes improving the understanding and responsiveness of community members to sexual violence. This inspired the creation of the “Understanding and Responding to Sexual Violence” series. The first module focused on general awareness and definitions, and was well received in previous years. The second module focuses on the application of knowledge in real world scenarios. 

Learners start the module with an activity called ‘What’s Your Risk?, where they are asked to critically assess their own personal risk of sexual or gender based violence in the next year on campus. Learners then create their own uLeth ID card that represents their unique situation, and through that process, are challenged to understand their own identity in terms of ability, gender, and sexuality. Then, their answers are used (or deemed to be completely unimportant) to create their own estimated risk of sexual and gender based violence, and compare it to others in the university community. Through this activity, dry statistics become immediate and personal.

Next, the learner walks through several common scenarios of violence identified by uLeth. These scenarios deliver different messages to the learner depending on their own choices, gentle enough for those who have experienced violence, and direct enough to identify those who do not self identify as a perpetrator of violence. There are actions that can be taken as bystanders or supportive friends, and explanations of common mistakes. This activity balances the needs of the diverse audience of learners and the roles they may potentially play. Utilizing strong instructional design principles combined with uLeth’s guidance and research statistics, the module delivered powerful and unique messages to each learner’s needs and experiences.

“The scenarios that each learner goes through are unique and we wanted the learning module to resonate with the learner’s own choices,” says Ron Thiele, President and Founder of Xpan. “We are honoured to be recognized alongside University Of Lethbridge for the tremendous work we did in this module to create a long lasting impact.”

“Fostering a culture of safety and wellbeing for our students, faculty and staff is imperative to ensuring a positive learning, working and living environment here at the University of Lethbridge. The team at Xpan has continuously understood our goal in working towards creating a culture of consent on our campus, while simultaneously improving the educational awareness on the complex issues of Gender-Based violence,” says Courtney Smith, Sexual and Gender-Based Violence Prevention Coordinator Counselling Services at University Of Lethbridge. “This award symbolizes our efforts to continually support and educate our campus community for years to come.”

uLeth is actively committed to building a safer and stronger community for its faculty, students, and staff. This commitment includes improving the understanding and responsiveness of community members to sexual violence. This inspired the creation of the “Understanding and Responding to Sexual Violence” series which is a mandatory component of student onboarding. The first module focused on general awareness and definitions, and was well received in previous years. The second module focuses on the application of knowledge in real world scenarios.