SALT LAKE CITY — Six colleges in Utah are offering an online course designed to prevent campus rapes by teaching students how to spot threatening behavior by possible offenders and better understand what constitutes consent.
Most of the schools are in their first or second year of using the program that enables schools to follow new federal requirements to do more to prevent sexual assaults on campus.
The two-hour course includes videos and slides about common scenarios that play out on campuses, The Salt Lake Tribune reported Wednesday.
The program, called Haven, is a required course for incoming students at Westminster College, Utah State University and Southern Utah University. It’s offered, but not mandated, at the University of Utah, Salt Lake Community College and Weber State University.
It is not offered at Mormon-owned Brigham Young University or Snow College.
The online course has become “a great resource to talk about sex, period,” said Ambra Jackson, president of the Associated Students of the University of Utah.
The program includes material that students click through that delves into what it means to give consent for sexual activity. It points out that if a person gives ambiguous answers or says nothing, that means there’s no consent.
“If you aren’t positive that someone is consenting to something,” the program says, “don’t move forward in any way.”
