“Not on my campus” are the powerful words Rachel Bruning, senior communication arts major, has dedicated herself to and hundreds of Park University students have taken a pledge to honor.

The pledge and dedication is to stop sexual assault on college campuses.

While sexual assault awareness has been in the national media lately, Bruning said she thought the time was right to bring it to Park community. She organized the “Not On My Campus” campaign as part of her internship credit in her leadership minor.

So far, Bruning’s campaign has held strong with 250 students taking the pledge in just three days to work towards preventing sexual assault on their campus and 186 likes on the Facebook page in one month.

“I want to stress that even though this was student led this semester, the school completely backed me on this which makes me think that they completely understand the problem,” Bruning said.

Bruning said she is pleased with the results and the support she has received from students, staff and faculty thus far.

“(Professor Lora) Cohn is my advisor and she was very enthusiastic and everyone responded the same way,” Bruning said. “The students all exceeded my expectations and I do believe the response from the students was because of the other students that I had helping me.”

Not only has Bruning seen the great reaction from the students but so has Cohn, associate professor of communication.

“I was really amazed at the students’ responses to this,” she said. “They have been so supportive and embraced this much more than I thought they might. It actually makes me feel really good about what we have at Park that students step outside their usual concerns to make the campus better.”
Not only is Cohn proud of the students at Park, she is especially proud of Bruning.

“I am really excited about how it’s changed Rachel,” she said. “I’ve watched her understand the need of organization and the need to step outside her comfort zone and ‘turn on the charm,’ to reach people. She’s really grown a lot this semester.”

Bruning has already begun the process of expanding her “Not on My Campus” campaign to other universities in the area. She also plans to ensure Park has a committee to continue the cause.

“I don’t want to ignore Park,” she said. “I want to form a committee here to push forward a movement and hopefully then I can start connecting with other classmates at other schools so I can start spreading it that way.”

Bruning has been working with an LE300 class to connect with different audiences so that this campaign will keep rolling into next semester where more events will be planned and the university will have more involvement.

For anyone who would like to be involved on the committee to continue this cause please contact Rachel Bruning on the group’s Facebook page, “Not at Park University- Pirates say “It’s on us”.