As Nick DiMico finishes his term and prepares to hand the reins to the new Director of Safety and Violence Prevention for ASUI, he believes he has set a solid foundation for the position to grow from.
Amy Asanuma | Argonaut
Seniors Annie Clayton and Zach Lopez observe KUOI’s Power Project. Students and community members are encouraged to write anonymous experiences with sexual violence, while voicing their opinions on the subject. The wall is located on the first floor of the University of Idaho Commons around the corner from the dining area.
“I worked extremely hard, long hours to produce something that all students could go away with,” DiMico said. “We had four educational events this semester that got students thinking about awareness of safety and violence prevention. With this position continuing, we have a starting point for this turnaround to continue to build the position even more.”
DiMico said he hopes to continue working with ASUI and the new director, Sara Spritzer, to continue strengthening violence prevention programming on campus.
DiMico has worked closely with University of Idaho Violence Prevention Programs Coordinator Virginia Solan to change the culture at UI. DiMico said he can see his efforts already changing the culture of violence.
Changing a culture has to deal with so many things, like building awareness,” DiMico said. “I definitely think we’ve done that with the events we’ve had this semester like the Power Project, the Post Secret wall, Denim Day and Green Dot today.”
The Green Dot program overview presentations took place Tuesday in the Idaho Commons Horizon and Aurora room. Nikki Finnestead, Violence Prevention Coordinator at Washington State University, led the presentation. WSU has already implemented the Green Dot program, and Finnestead said she can see a difference.
“We conduct evaluations with this program, and we are still in the preliminary stages of getting that data,” Finnestead said. “But when we are talking to students during these evaluations they say they are making behavior changes because of the program.”
Solan said while she and DiMico have been busy with violence prevention programming all of April, the focus is really on Green Dot. She said the program requires a deliberate rollout process based on proven research of how to most effectively implement it, and consequently it takes a long time to fully implement. She said they will work hard in focus groups during the summer to come up with an implementation plan.
Finnestead said WSU is a prime example of the lengthy implementation process.
“It took about a year to really get this thing off the ground,” Finnestead said. “Now a year and a half later we are still finding things to tweak and improve. It is definitely a process.”
Finnestead said once the program takes root it is the students who make it grow. She gave the example of a public service announcement a group of Green Dot trained WSU students put together by themselves.
Solan said the idea of Green Dot is to have students hold other students accountable for their actions because peer-to-peer enforcement is more effective. She said Green Dot is a community undertaking.
“The Green Dot slogan is true,” Solan said. “When it comes to violence prevention ‘no one has to do everything, but everyone has to do something.'”
Andrew Deskins can be reached at [email protected]