Before the Katy Benoit Safety Forum could begin, it was cancelled and rescheduled.
Emilie McLarnan and Blaine Eckles, organizers of the event, said it was rescheduled due to low student turn out. Roughly half a dozen were there besides event organizers and panelists.
Blaine Eckles, dean of students, addressed those who attended about the cancelled panel event.
Eckles said he wanted to reschedule the event to a time when more students could attend, because it was such an important issue, and important to remembering Benoit.
McLarnan also commented on this cancelation.
“Tonight we are facing a significantly lower turnout than we anticipated so we have decided to pivot and be flexible in how we’re going to approach this. … We will be rescheduling this event for a future date in two weeks, we will be getting those invitations out, and having a turnout that this film deserves and this panel discussion deserves,” McLarnan said.
Mclarnan and Eckles both encouraged those who did attend to tell their friends about the rescheduling of the event, so more students would be aware of it in the future.
McLarnan could not give an exact date to as when the forum will be rescheduled to, but said the Dean of Students Office would inform students as to when it would be happening.
Regardless of the cancelation, organizers still screened a documentary that focuses on sexual assault on college campuses, “The Hunting Ground.”
In the next forum, McLarnan said they hope that after a showing of the documentary, students will have a chance to ask panelists questions about sexual assault, and how our campus handles sexual assault.
Director of the UI Women’s Center Lysa Salsbury, slated as a panelist, said it was important students engaged in this part of the forum as they might leave with a misguided view of how sexual assault is handled on campus.
“I think the documentary… represents a response that is not common anymore. … Unfortunately, at that time it was, so I think it’s important to look at where we were and how far we’ve come,” Salsbury said.
Salsbury said being part of the panel is important to her as well as being able to answer student questions.
“I want them to see my face and for them to know I am a safe person on campus, that they come and tell me their stories, and I don’t have to tell anyone else about them, and that if they do decide that they want to proceed with a formal report, that I will do everything I can to support them through that,” Salsbury said.
Nicole Skinner, ASUI president, will also be part of the next panel. Skinner said she hopes to offer her views on sexual assault on campus.
“I hope to dismantle the idea that preventing violence is some glorious, performative task … it also happens in our day-to-day actions and the ways we speak to each other,” Skinner said.
The Katy Benoit Safety Forum is part of the “I Got Your Back” safety month put on by the Violence Prevention Center and has been an annual event since 2012.
This event is in remembrance of Katy Benoit, a psychology graduate student, who died after being shot and killed by a UI professor.
Benoit and the former professor, Ernesto Bustamante, had been engaged in a romantic relationship. Benoit had ended the relationship in the months before her death and filed a formal complaint against Bustamante.
On why this event is so important for students to attend, McLarnan said, “It’s a timely moment to engage a little more deeply around this issue and this film can give a lot of people food for thought, and give that live interaction to ask people these questions who deal with on a regular basis.”
Cody Allred can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @CodyLAllred.