We Are Responding: How We Are Turning Listening into Action – Part II – What Comes Next

After listening to students this fall, one thing became clear: students are not asking for more information. They are asking for support that feels real, human, accessible, and grounded in everyday campus life. They are asking for skills they can use in real moments, not just concepts they hear once and forget. They are asking for a culture where they do not have to navigate harm, confusion, or silence alone. 

So next semester, our work is focused on building that culture with them. 

This is where listening becomes action. 

Strengthening Peer Support 

Students told us they turn to their friends first. This means the first response to harm is rarely professional. It happens in the quiet spaces of everyday life; someone sitting on the edge of a bed, someone crying in a car after a party, someone whispering, “I don’t know what to do.” 

Because of that, we are expanding our peer response and support training. Our focus will be teaching students how to listen without rushing, how to validate without questioning, and how to support without forcing decisions. We will teach what it means to sit with someone in a moment that feels overwhelming and not try to fix it. We will teach students how to hold space with care. Support begins in relationship. So that is where we will start. 

Practicing Real Bystander Intervention 

Students already want to step in when something feels wrong. What they need is confidence and language. Not theoretical examples. Real ones. The kind that happen in dorms, at parties, at group gatherings, during late nights when things shift quietly and quickly. 

Next semester, we will teach strategies that feel doable in real life; changing the conversation, interrupting a situation without confrontation, checking in privately, or creating an exit route for someone who needs one. Bystander intervention is not about being loud or heroic. It is about being attentive, intentional, and willing to act when something feels off. Students already care. We will help them turn that care into skill. 

Bringing Prevention Into the Spaces That Need It Most 

Students shared that conversations about consent and harm happen more often in women’s groups and LGBTQ+ spaces, but not nearly as often in Greek life, athletics, student leadership organizations, or social clubs. These are the spaces where culture is shaped. These are the spaces where expectations, norms, and dynamics take root. 

Next semester, our education team and Allies to Advocates interns will be working directly with these communities to create prevention spaces where they have not existed before. Not as lectures or as accusations. It is an invitations to build something healthier and stronger together. Prevention works best when it happens in the places where students live, lead, connect, and form identity. That is where we are going. 

Making Support More Visible and More Human 

Many students told us they know resources exist, but do not know how to reach them or what will happen if they do. That uncertainty can feel overwhelming. 

So we are simplifying access points and increasing visibility. We will be sharing clearer explanations of what support looks like, what confidentiality means, what choices a survivor actually has, and how reaching out can happen gently, privately, and at one’s own pace. Support should not feel like a system someone is dropped into. It should feel like a hand someone is met with. 

Why This Matters 

Students want to belong. They want to feel safe with the people around them. They want to know that if something feels uncomfortable in their body or spirit, they are allowed to listen to that. And they want to know that if something happens, they will not be alone. 

Changing culture is not about telling students to try harder. It is about reshaping the world they are living in. It is about giving them language, community, support, and space to practice care in real time. It is about building campus environments where people are not diminished, pressured, or ignored, but seen, heard, and protected. Culture changes when people decide they want something better and are given tools to build it. We believe students are ready. 

If You Need Support 

You do not need to know what happened or why. 
You do not need to have the right words. 
You do not need to carry it alone. 

24/7 Crisis Hotline: 214-941-1991 
dallasrapecrisis.org 

We are here. 
We are listening. 
We are not going anywhere.