Rates of sexual assault at the University of Wyoming are roughly in line with national averages and have decreased, on average, since 2018 according to preliminary data from the university’s 2022 Campus Climate Survey.
According to the survey’s preliminary findings, 11% of males, 23% of females, 12% of non-binary, and 18% of overall students have experienced “at least one in instance of unwanted sexual touching, penetration, or attempted penetration,” while at the University of Wyoming.
“It’s more prevalent than people think. Our numbers are now in line with national averages, and they’re starting to trend down,” Matthew Gray, a UW professor of psychology and chair of the sexual assault data committee, said.
Campus Climate Surveys tend to show higher rates of sexual assault as well as be more accurate than university police records, which is to be expected according to Gray.
“The great majority of survivors do not formally report to the university. They don’t formally report to Title IX, they don’t formally report to campus police. So I think there’s been this tendency historically for universities to look at their own crime data and be like, ‘Oh, we only have a handful of these instances,’” Gray said.
“People have always perceived that there’s a big problem elsewhere, but ‘on our friendly, safe little campus, we don’t have that big of a problem.’”
According to Gray, Campus Climate Surveys are vital, as they provide university administration a clearer view of problems on campus.
“[The data committee] knew kind of what the numbers would look like, but people who are unfamiliar with sexual misconduct on college campuses were like, ‘oh, that has to be way too high. That’s shocking. Those numbers are way out of line.’ But again, across lots of studies, CDC data, lots of university studies, you kind of see that [the data is consistent],” Gray said.
“The only way that any university is going to get a good, accurate depiction of how prevalent sexual violence and sexual misconduct is on their campuses is to do a large scale campus climate survey.”
The preliminary data shows that there has been a 10 – 20% reduction in sexual assault “overall across different types of sexual assault.”
According to the data, there has been a 2% decrease, from 12% to 10%, of individuals who have experinced “at least one instance of completed oral, vaginal, or anal rape (excluding nonconsensual sexual touching and attempted, but not completed, rape).”
“If we take the most severe type of sexual assault, and that is completed rape, dropping 12% to 10% might not seem that significant, but the power of large numbers when we’re talking about a campus of nine to ten thousand students, a 2% reduction means that we have 180 fewer severe assaults of students on campus right now than we had four years ago,” Gray said.
“If you think about 180 people, who at the same prevalence rate would have experienced a completed rape over the course of five years, that reduction I think people would recognize as anything but inconsequential.”
Gray contributes much of the reported decrease to the implementation of the university’s Green Dot program and is confident in the program.
“Green Dot was the first program that demonstrated [improvement]. Yes, we increase knowledge. Yes, we increase awareness, confidence that you could intervene, but importantly, where the rubber meets the road is once you roll it out. Do you start to see your campus numbers drop? Green Dot was the very first program that started to actually do that.”
For Gray, the preliminary data is a sign that the campus is moving in a positive direction, but that work still needs to be done.
“We actually see these numbers coming down and that is, up until a few years ago, unheard of. People just kept documenting the same numbers year in and year out. And so seeing 10 to 20% reductions in sexual assault is super gratifying because a lot of work. A lot of investment went into that,” Gray said.
“We’re not satisfied with that. The numbers aren’t truly good until they get to zero. But they’re encouraging. They’re moving in the right direction.”
Gray is anticipating that the completed 2022 Campus Climate Survey will be published and accessible to community members within the next month.
