Quinnipiac University announced Monday afternoon that Judy D. Olian would be named the ninth president in the history of the school.
Olian takes over the role from John Lahey, who served as Quinnipiac’s president since 1978, a 31- year tenure. Lahey officially gives way to Olian on July 1, 2018.
“I can’t tell you how thrilled I am to be here,” Olian said. “(I am) very excited to be joining you in building this next phase of a very special university.”
Olian takes time out to talk to Hamden mayor Curt B. Lang after her press conference.
Olian has been serving as the dean at the UCLA Anderson School of Management since 2006, and is the first female president in Quinnipiac history.
The school had been reviewing candidates for a new president since Lahey announced his impending retirement in April of 2017. Under Lahey, Quinnipiac has added two campuses and increased enrollment to more than five times as many students per year, as well as a added a polling institute and Division I athletics.
“This is an exciting time for Quinnipiac University,” Lahey said in a statement announcing Olian’s appointment. “We wish Dr. Judy Olian the best of luck as she builds on the success forged by our students, faculty and staff, working with the Quinnipiac community to move our institution to even greater levels of achievement.”
That’s what people expect from someone who has just survived a sexual assault.
Support.
That’s what survivors expect from others after having just survived a sexual assault.
But as Christina, then 19, sat in that cold room for a hearing in front of a board of strangers who were forcing her to relive the details of the night it happened, tears never came.
To make matters worse, her assaulter was sitting in the same room, just beyond a divider. She couldn’t see him, but she could feel that he was there. She didn’t speak to him, but she could hear his voice.
And as Christina left that room without a ruling to give her closure, support never came.
One in five women and one in 16 men are sexually assaulted while in college.
More than 90 percent of sexual assault victims on college campuses do not report the assault.
Christina was part of the minority who do. But, as she left her Title IX hearing, she knew changes to the process had to be made.
The U.S. Board of Education knew this, too. But it had other changes in mind.
On Sept. 22, U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos introduced new interim guidance for schools on how to investigate and adjudicate allegations of campus sexual misconduct under federal law. These sexual misconduct cases fall under Title IX—a nationwide federal statute applied to grades K-12, higher education institutions and other educational agencies and intended to protect people from sex discrimination in education programs or other activities, according to the Department of Education.
“The interim guidance will help schools as they work to combat sexual misconduct and will treat all students fairly,” DeVos said in a statement. While she wants sexual misconduct issues to be handled “head-on” on college campuses, DeVos said she believes the process needs to be more equitable for the accused student.
Perhaps the biggest change outlined in the guidance allows universities to modify the standard of evidence by which they rule on campus sexual assault cases. Schools are now able to move from a “preponderance of evidence” to a “clear and convincing” standard of proof.
The higher standard of evidence makes cases of sexual misconduct more difficult to prove. The new standard requires more evidence, closer to the “beyond-a-reasonable-doubt” standard employed in federal court cases. This is where the guidance stirs up controversy: Proponents of the higher evidence standard claim that this will allow for a fairer process for both parties, while opponents argue that it will discourage students from reporting sexual assaults.
National Sexual Violence Resource Center, 2015.
National Sexual Violence Resource Center, 2015.
Title IX is best known for helping to bring equality to women’s athletics, but it also governs sexual misconduct cases at educational institutions — which is what the new interim guidance focuses on.
Quinnipiac senior, Ian Zeitlin.
Quinnipiac senior Ian Zeitlin, senior class representative for the Student Government Association and president of WISH (Women in Support of Humanity), is opposed to the idea of schools implementing the higher standard.
“When it comes down to it, going to that higher level of evidence is really damaging,” Zeitlin said. “We’re coming from a society where we already have a number of untold cases that are not reported because of the pressures put on by other people in a system that doesn’t always work in favor of survivors. Putting forward a message that you need more evidence makes it harder for people to think that, if they come forward, they’ll be treated fairly or that people will be on their side.”
However, it is ultimately up to the schools to decide whether or not they choose to adopt this new guidance. Seann Kalagher, the associate dean of Student Affairs and deputy Title IX coordinator for students at Quinnipiac, said that the new guidance is simply supplemental.
“The thing is, with the new guidance, it didn’t tell us what we have to do,” Kalagher said, sitting at his desk with his hands folded neatly in his lap. “It really just said, ‘Some things we told you that you couldn’t do are now available to you.’ ”
Terri Johnson, associate vice president of operations and Title IX coordinator at Quinnipiac, sent an email to students regarding the new guidance on the Monday following DeVos’ initial statements. The email was sent to clarify what was proposed by DeVos and outlined how Quinnipiac plans to respond.
How does Quinnipiac plan to respond?
Thanks, but no thanks, Mrs. DeVos.
“It is important to note that the Quinnipiac Title IX team carefully and continuously reviews our policies to ensure timely and equitable treatment for both the reporting and responding parties; we will certainly continue to do so as the Department of Education changes evolve through the current administration,” Johnson wrote. “It is equally important to note that the action last week does not change Quinnipiac’s obligations, policies or procedures.”
Associate Dean of Student Affairs and Deputy Title IX Coordinator, Seann Kalagher.
The email also highlighted the fact that Quinnipiac has no plans to adjust the appeals process either. Quinnipiac currently allows both parties to appeal a decision and will continue to do so despite the guidance’s suggestion that only allow the accused student be allowed an appeal. Johnson concluded the email by listing resources for support.
Kalagher refers to the new guidance, however, as a “placeholder” – certain that it was issued temporarily until the Department of Education can conduct a more comprehensive regulatory process in which it will negotiate changes to overhaul Title IX policy regulations.
Zeitlin agrees. “I think this year’s “trial period” essentially is being used as more of a “cooling-off” period before they say they’re going to possibly put forth guidelines that make it harder to prove or accuse someone of sexual assault,” Zeitlin said.
With the likelihood of a Title IX overhaul in the future, officials on both sides say it is important for colleges and universities to be on the same page as their students in order to brace for the impact of a potentially permanent and mandatory revised policy. The conduct process is where faculty members and students have the greatest opportunity to work together to ensure that students aren’t discouraged from coming forward.
Courtney McKenna, director of Student Affairs and a Title IX investigator at Quinnipiac, defended the school’s adherence to the original standard of evidence while describing the process by which sexual assault cases are handled.
“I think our process is really fair and student centered,” McKenna said, smiling. “It’s always about, ‘How do we make sure we find as much information as we can as appropriately as possible while keeping the students in mind?’”
McKenna described the sexual assault case process as “equitable” — and adding that this is what makes Quinnipiac’s approach successful. Once a student comes forward, the process begins. In each case, Kalagher appoints two impartial investigators who conduct interviews and acquire as much information as they can in order to reach a conclusion.
Once sufficient information has been gathered by the investigators, which can take several weeks depending on the case, the findings are brought to a board hearing. The board reads all reports, identifies questions and implements a sanction as it sees fit during a hearing that generally takes place in a single day. Sanctions can range from writing a reflective essay to removal from residential housing on campus and even expulsion from the university.
As an investigator, McKenna takes her responsibility to seek an equitable outcome seriously and refers to the process as “trauma-informed” in order to avoid what she calls “revictimization.” Revictimization can occur when the victim is forced to relive an event by retelling his or her story too many times or experiencing a lack of support during the recovery process itself. For McKenna, this is something she and her fellow faculty members try to avoid throughout the process.
“We’ve set it up so that the student isn’t having to have to share with a lot of different people. They can choose if they want to share and bring a counselor or support person or friend with them to a meeting,” she said. “The students involved know that if they ever need something throughout the process, they can reach out to the investigators.”
Christina, a junior who did not wish to share her last name to protect her identity and works as a graphic designer for Quinnipiac, had her own thoughts about the investigation process. Christina, who was in a verbally abusive relationship with a fellow Quinnipiac student that “had its breaking point” in an incident on campus just over a year ago, described the process as equivalent to repeatedly ripping open a wound.
“It’s hard because you’re literally forced to relive the night over and over again. They keep going through it,” Christina said, her glassy eyes staring straight ahead. “They ask you a ton of questions because they want a very thorough investigation. My case took three to four months. There’s weeks where they don’t need anything from you, and those are good weeks, but they rip open the wound again next week when they need more information from you. Each time it gets appealed, it’s like a fight to come up with new information so you can prove yourself.”
A timeline outlining the steps of a typical Title IX investigation at Quinnipiac, as described in detail by McKenna, can be seen below.
After the incident occurred, she had to rebuild her life. She still avoids certain places on campus because she doesn’t want to run into her attacker. Even after being charged on five out of the six accusations, he still attends Quinnipiac. Christina chose not to exercise her right to appeal his sanctions because, she said, she was tired and “didn’t want to deal with it anymore”.
Christina said Quinnipiac, in lieu of the new guidance, could make a change to the Title IX process to unite students and faculty since the biggest divide between them isn’t the process itself, but what happens after.
“I completely agree to a fair process,” Christina insisted. “But after the whole thing is done and over with, I feel like there’s no transition from the process to moving on. I feel like they want to dig up all of this information but when it’s over with, they’re like, ‘Oh, it’s over. You’re done here … you’re fine’.”
Providing students with an outside person trained in Title IX who is available to provide support as the victim moves on after the process concludes would be a major improvement, Christina said. It would ultimately help encourage students to continue to come forward because they would know they’d have the help of someone who understands what happens after the process is over.
Students like Tatyana Youssef, vice president for student experience for the Student Government Association at Quinnipiac, agree that changes need to be made — even if they aren’t what DeVos proposed.
“Events and panel discussions regarding the issue should be mandatory for all students on campuses,” Youssef said. “Revictimization is the worst thing next to a sexual assault case, so professors should implement these social issues into the curriculum for awareness.”
Senior political science major and Quinnipiac student, Peter Carusone, defends DeVos’ new “fair” guidance proposal based on what he says are constitutional rights that affirm individuals as innocent until proven guilty from the very beginning of the process.
Quinnipiac senior, Peter Carusone.
“I think people over analyze decisions sometimes. They’ll take too much from it. They’ll say, ‘Oh Betsy DeVos is protecting bad people,’ but that wasn’t her intention, and that’s not why she did it,” he said. “There were too many good people being harmed by [the preponderance standard], and I think all she did was say, ‘Let’s go back to our criminal justice system. Let’s go back to innocent until proven guilty.’”
Carusone argues that returning to the “clear and convincing” evidence standard would allow colleges and universities to function more like a courtroom while upholding the Constitution – something he says is a priority.
“You should want constitutional rights. You should want due process. You should want equal protection. Those things are good,” he said. “We should be wanting more of that, and I think it’s innocent until proven guilty for a reason.”
When asked how he would respond to opponents of the new guidance who argue that implementing a higher evidence standard would discourage victims from coming forward, Carusone said that particular issue already exists with sexual assault cases – higher standard or not.
“The problem throughout history is that there is a stigma: People won’t talk about it, and they won’t even go to law enforcement,” he said. “But, now, we’re seeing people talk about it, at least. It’s on us to fix it and talk about the commonality of [sexual assault] in order to prevent it in the first place.”
Tamar Birckhead, a 52-year-old attorney and former law professor at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Law, Duke School of Law and Yale Law School currently living in Guilford, Connecticut, has defended university students accused of sexual assault before and agrees with Carusone that universities should adopt DeVos’ higher standard of evidence.
“It is beneficial because of the lack of due process afforded to accused students, although I recognize that the higher the standard of proof, the more traumatic the experience could be for the complainant,” Birckhead said. “But, given the grave potential consequences and sanctions for the accused, it is a tradeoff that I would support.”
In her experience, she said, accused students in these cases are often treated unfairly in the process. Birckhead says that, to fix this, investigations and adjudication of sexual assault cases should be handled by law enforcement – not universities.
“Alleged victims should be referred to the local police, and if a conviction or other sanction results, it should be reported to and evaluated by the university, which then could determine its own sanction, if any, and should consider mediation and restorative justice models,” Birckhead explained. “If these cases automatically were reported to and investigated by local law enforcement in this way, it would serve as a greater deterrent to assailants than the threat of mere academic discipline.”
While the process didn’t necessarily yield the outcome Christina hoped for, she decided to use her experience to help spread awareness and advocate for other survivors by writing articles for The Chronicle—a Quinnipiac student-run newspaper. Her most recent article was an opinion piece on the new guidance titled, “DeVos missed the point with Title IX,” commending Quinnipiac for its decision not to follow the new guidelines while highlighting the bigger issue: revictimization.
“I don’t agree with DeVos’ changes because I don’t think the issue with Title IX lies in the amount of evidence we are collecting to prove the accused,” Christina wrote. “The issue lies in sanctioning the guilty, providing support in helping victims readjust to school and in making an effort to prevent Title IX violations all together.”
This is where faculty members and students, like Christina and Youssef, agree. Encouraging students to come forward by implementing new educational programs and promoting other changes in lieu of the new guidance, regardless of what they believe the outcome might be, is more important than any changes that DeVos proposed, they say.
McKenna plans to roll out a program in February called Haven, which is similar in style to the alcohol education course that incoming Quinnipiac freshman take. She says that her department is excited to get the program up and running to educate the student body.
“We’re constantly always looking to see what would be impactful,” McKenna said. “Something could work well for a couple of years, but then it gets stale. So how do we change that to make it relevant?”
Campus officials hope that programs like these and events that spread awareness will lead to a decline in sexual assault cases on campus, and an end to revictimization over all—without needing a higher evidence standard to prove a case.
Although the process was taxing on Christina, speaking up was most important.
“Even though things didn’t end in my favor, I don’t regret reporting it to the school at all. I think just going through the process is a symbol of strength that you’re fighting back and trying to get justice for what happened to you, and you deserve that,” Christina said. “Title IX is in place so that you have the opportunity to feel safe at school, and take advantage of that because you shouldn’t have to walk around campus feeling unsafe.”
College can be a challenging experience for many students. But for those with mental illnesses, the typical college struggles can be amplified.
Mental health problems, especially anxiety and depression, have been a growing concern on college campuses in recent years.
According to the American College Health Association’s National College Health Assessment from fall 2016, almost 20 percent of students reported being diagnosed with or treated for anxiety within the past year and 15.2 percent were diagnosed with or treated for depression.
However, not all students seek mental health treatment, so the actual rates of anxiety and depression could be higher. In fact, the same survey found that 60.8 percent of all students said they had felt overwhelming anxiety and 38.2 percent felt so depressed that it was difficult to function within the past year.
Not only are anxiety and depression the most common mental health problems among college students, but the distress levels associated with them are also on the rise. According to the Center for Collegiate Mental Health’s 2016 annual report, students’ distress levels for depression, generalized anxiety and social anxiety have increased the past six years. Meanwhile, distress levels for other concerns have decreased or remained constant.
The prevalence of these mental health issues may be due to the distinct situation college students are in. This is the time when many people experience significant stress for the first time. For many students, it is also the first time they live on their own and take on more responsibility. The combination of these factors can worsen or trigger students’ mental illnesses.
At colleges across the country, including Quinnipiac University, students with mental illnesses have a unique experience. The interaction between the college environment and their illnesses can lead to challenges that aren’t shared with any other age group.
“Transition to college and other factors found on campus can highlight stressors that individuals thought they were able to handle in previous years,” Quinnipiac counselor Sheila van den Broeck said. “Being away from one’s support system can also add to the decrease in the individual’s ability to cope.”
Penny Leisring, a psychology professor at Quinnipiac, agrees. She says “stress and big transitions” and “being away from family and friends” are reasons why a student’s mental health might worsen while in college.
Stress, commonly caused by finances and academics, is a major concern for all college students. However, dealing with stress can be particularly hard for students also experiencing mental health problems.
American College Health Association; Center for Collegiate Mental Health
When it comes to academics, depression and anxiety can have a negative effect. According to the ACHA’s fall 2016 assessment, nearly a quarter of students reported that anxiety affected their academic performance within the previous year and 15.4 percent said depression affected their academic performance. The effects on academics ranged from receiving a low grade to having to drop a class.
Students at Quinnipiac who see their academics affected by their struggles with mental illness can seek help at the Counseling Center.
“Poor academic performance can be a factor but we encourage the use of the Learning Commons and open dialogue with their professors,” van den Broeck said. “We also encourage learning strategies, deep breathing, and other techniques tailored to the student’s individual needs.”
Regardless of academic difficulties, all students suffering from a mental illness are encouraged to take advantage of the resources available to them on campus and beyond.
“There are many effective treatments for anxiety and depression like cognitive behavioral therapy,” Leisring said. “And there is an office on campus called the Office of Student Accessibility that can help students arrange appropriate accommodations if any are needed. For example, a student with a severe mental health problem may want to take a reduced course load, may need extra time for exams, etc.”
Many students do utilize these resources, including the Counseling Center. According to van den Broeck, the center has had 550 intakes this semester.
“Students attend counseling for a variety of behavioral health related issues,” van den Broeck said. “Some stemming from transition issues, interpersonal issues, stress-related symptoms and persistent illnesses.”
However, the Counseling Center isn’t perfect. It has a small staff and limited hours, which means students don’t always get as much help as they need.
Still, receiving professional counseling can be helpful to students in many ways. For one, it may be their only source of support. Many students with mental illnesses say they lack support from their family and friends, according to the CCMH’s 2016 report.
The lack of support may stem from the stigma that surrounds mental illness. People often label those who have a mental illness as “crazy.” They may also make assumptions that they are dangerous, criminal or unable to live normal lives. Due to these misconceptions, students with mental illnesses may feel judged or isolated. They may also be afraid to speak up about their issues.
These students may have much in common. However, mental illness does not affect everyone the same way. Every student faces different challenges and uses different coping methods. While research, data and expert’s statements are important, they cannot tell the whole story.
Each student’s voice deserves to be heard, so here are just a few of those voices.
ANNA’S STORY
Anna, a senior at Quinnipiac, has suffered from multiple anxiety disorders since she was in elementary school. Since then, her anxiety has progressively gotten worse. Starting college led to a spike in her symptoms and she had trouble adjusting.
“By the end of my freshman year, I thought I had made a huge mistake. I didn’t think I was cut out for college,” Anna said. “I started seriously considering dropping out or transferring to my community college at home or starting an online program. I just felt so alone and my anxiety was really interfering with my life and I was not coping well.”
Anna says the stress she experienced was a major factor in her considering to leave Quinnipiac. But unlike many students who consider dropping out, her grades were never suffering. Anna has always been a good student and gets mostly A’s. However, that doesn’t mean classes aren’t anxiety-inducing for her.
“Presentations and group projects are the worst. So are discussion-based classes. I obviously do much better in lectures with individual assignments so I can keep to myself,” Anna said. “If I can go a whole class without talking, I consider it a good class. But unfortunately I can’t always be that lucky. In many classes, I have to speak so I dread going to them and get very anxious before and during them.”
Anna’s anxiety often interferes with other aspects of her life as well.
“Everyday things that most people don’t think twice about are really difficult for me. People might mistake it as laziness or just not wanting to do something, but it is truly physically difficult for me,” Anna said. “Getting the mail, taking out the garbage, ordering food, going to an appointment, going to class – they are all so hard sometimes.”
Anna says most people are not aware of these kinds of issues that go along with anxiety She says she often feels misunderstood and judged.
“It can be really isolating,” Anna said. “I don’t feel like anybody really understands what I deal with.”
Feeling alone has been a common theme in Anna’s life. She says she has never had many friends. This stems from her social anxiety, which makes it difficult for her to interact with people.
“It’s really hard to make friends and that means I don’t have many people I can talk to about my issues, so I mostly just keep it all to myself and I feel like I am going to explode,” Anna said.
Anna also does not receive any professional help. She has not seen a therapist since she was younger, but she thinks she needs to seek help again. She knows she needs it and that it could make her life much better. However, it is not that simple for her.
“I want to see a therapist because of my anxiety, but I don’t want to see a therapist because of my anxiety,” Anna said. “I kind of get caught in this cycle because the thing I need help with is the thing that prevents me from getting help.”
While some days are harder than others, Anna feels like she is on the right track. She says the next year or so will be difficult, but she is trying to be optimistic about her future. Despite her anxiety, she is the kind of person who always tries to focus on the positives.
DAVID’S STORY
David is a Quinnipiac senior who has suffered from depression since he was in middle school. He has also had periods of feeling suicidal.
“When I was in middle school, I would walk to the train tracks in my town like every day and just sit there and contemplate jumping in front of the train,” David said.
Like Anna, David does not currently receive any professional help.
“In high school I kind of freaked out on my mom and told her I felt depressed and suicidal. Of course, then she made me go see a therapist. But that didn’t last long – just a couple weeks,” David said. “I just didn’t see how it could possibly help and I assured my mom that I was ok. In retrospect, I probably should have kept seeing the therapist. Maybe I wouldn’t have these issues anymore or I’d be able to cope in better ways.”
His current method of coping is by abusing alcohol and drugs.
“When everything gets too hard and too much to handle, I drink or smoke or take pills,” David said. “I know it’s not the right answer to my problems, but it seems to be the only thing that works.”
Though he has not felt suicidal in a few years, David says his depression has worsened while in college. Being away from family and having easier access to drugs and alcohol has had a negative impact on his mental health. However, people who know him may not be aware of that.
“Most people have no idea what I am going through. I’m pretty outgoing and seem to be in a good mood all the time, but it’s really just a show,” David said. “I hide everything pretty well. I used to have to work at hiding things, but now it is just natural to lie and pretend.”
ALEX’S STORY
Alex Nauta is a sophomore at Quinnipiac who is double majoring in marketing and operations and supply chain management. She has suffered from obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) and anxiety since she was 8 years old.
OCD is significantly less common among college students, and in general, than depression and anxiety. According to the ACHA’s fall 2016 assessment, 3.2 percent of students were diagnosed with or treated for OCD within the previous year.
Ever since she was diagnosed as a child, Nauta has been in and out of intensive therapy. However, she maintains a positive view of her mental illnesses.
“I have gotten used to it for the most part,” Nauta said. “It has become a part of me and although at times it may set me back, it has given me some of my greatest strengths.”
But starting college had both positive and negative effects on her mental health. On the one hand, she says she did not have much trouble with adjusting.
“I am pretty resilient and adaptable and have always worked hard and done well academically,” Nauta said.
She also says college-related stress has not been a major factor in her mental health.
“For the most part, my stress has decreased since college,” Nauta said. “I thrive and am the happiest when I am busy.”
However, it hasn’t all been easy for Nauta.
“Due to the stigma of having a mental illness, my freshman year I had to switch roommates because my first room was uncomfortable with my medication” Nauta said. “They didn’t understand mental health and thought my medication classified me as crazy.”
The lack of acceptance from her peers was made harder by being away from her supportive family.
“I am extremely close to my family. I miss them in school and still call them every day,” Nauta said. “It is hard being away, but I know they are always there for me regardless of the struggles I am facing. I don’t go home often, but it is always great to go home and see them.”
To help deal with those struggles, Nauta takes advantage of the resources on Quinnipiac’s campus.
“I use the on-campus psychiatrist once or twice a semester and check in with the Counseling Center about once a month,” Nauta said.
Her other coping methods include running and making jewelry. The jewelry Nauta makes and sells is intended to raise awareness about mental illness and money for the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation, which funds mental illness research. It is important to Nauta to do what she can to fight the stigma surrounding mental illness.
RESOURCES FOR STUDENTS
The uniqueness of the college years creates distinct challenges for students with mental illnesses. When they were younger, they had less stress that was weighing on them and exacerbating symptoms. As they grow older, they might have better coping methods and more control over their issues.
But during the transition from childhood to adulthood, dealing with a mental illness can be extremely difficult. With the added stress of finances and academics and the absence of a support system, students like Anna, David and Alex may struggle.
While every student doesn’t have the exact same experience or challenges, there are resources available that can be helpful to everyone at Quinnipiac who has mental health problems.
The Counseling Center provides students with individual counseling and support groups. Students can make an appointment with a counselor online through MyQ. Services are free and will not be billed to students’ insurance companies.
The Learning Commons provides students with academic support. It offers peer tutors to help any student who needs assistance with a class or assignment.
The Office of Student Accessibility makes accommodations for students with disabilities. Students can fill out a form to request an accommodation.
There are multiple therapists and psychiatrists nearby to Quinnipiac. They can provide therapy and medications if necessary. Psychology Today has a search engine to help people find psychiatrists that suit their needs and take their insurance.
There are also organizations like the National Alliance on Mental Illness that provide education and support and raise awareness about mental health.
Multiple helplines are also available to anyone who needs someone to talk to. Some can provide more information about certain issues while others serve as an intervention during a crisis.
December 14, 2012, is a day that will haunt Newtown, Connecticut for decades to come. But it does not want to be defined by this one tragedy.
As the five-year anniversary has drawn closer, the residents find it a dreadful reminder of the emotions they felt that day. Even with more mass killings in the United States since 2012, the shootings at Sandy Hook still generate a sense of horror and dread and have led to calls for tighter gun control measures.
While the event is forever burned into the memories of residents, the town is making the conscientious choice to move forward and not be defined by one singular tragedy.
Scarlett Lewis lost one of her sons, Jesse, in that fateful day. When the news broke, she was devastated. Jesse was six-years old at the time.
Jesse was known for his bravery in the face of danger. During the shooting, he looked the gunman in the eye and told his classmates to run away from the gunman according to one of the parents in the April 21, 2013 broadcast of CBS’s Face the Nation. Jesse was shot and killed by Adam Lanza, looking at Lanza straight in the eye in his final moments.
While Lewis was faced with the biggest nightmare a parent could have, she didn’t want this to permanently change her outlook on life. She noticed other people had let their emotions cloud their better judgement.
“…I watched how other people reacted,” Lewis said. “And a lot of people reacted in anger. When something bad happens, the first thing we say is ‘whose fault is it?’ But I realized that if I did that, I would be another victim of Adam Lanza.”
Prior to her son’s death, Lewis worked as a realtor and municipal bonds trader. Today her life’s goal is to spread love and compassion to productively nurture children who have troubled upbringings and angry emotions. The inspiration for the cause came from Jesse himself.
Every day before school, Jesse would write on a chalkboard. It would be a new word he learned, a drawing, or something that showed he loved his parents. Lewis said that in the immediate aftermath of the shooting, she had found three words Jesse had written on the chalkboard: “Nurturing, Healing, Love.”
“I knew (then) that if the shooter in our situation had been able to give and receive love, the tragedy wouldn’t have happened. So that lead me to my mission,” Lewis said.
Soon after this discovery, Lewis started the Jesse Lewis Choose Love Foundation. Through this charity, she hopes to stop acts of rage by giving tools to parents and classrooms to show compassion for children around the world.
From the Jesse Lewis Choose Love website
Lewis is one of several parents of victims who has started a foundation in honor of their late children. She gives frequent speaking engagements preaching her methods of how love can impact one’s life. She spoke this fall at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. Previously she had delivered a TEDx talk in Fayetteville, North Carolina in 2014.
“We are gonna have to create the change we want,” Lewis said.
How was Lewis able to take action after Jesse’s death so quickly? She credits her “tremendous faith in God,” but not everyone is able to live with such a tragedy in a short amount of time.
As grief is considered a normal part of the human experience, there has not been much research done on what grief may do to a person, let alone to a parent who lost their child. In the April 2011 Social Work academic journal published by the Oxford University Press, author Elizabeth C. Pomeroy would probably categorize Lewis as a “resilient” person. Pomeroy describes a subject, Jan, who developed thyroid cancer after her husband’s death and had their mother die of ovarian cancer two years after her own diagnosis. Despite occasionally feeling negative emotions and having to care for her children at the same time, Jan did not let her problems affect her life too much.
“This is not to say there were not times when (Jan) was depressed, anxious, exhausted or in crisis. She experienced a roller coaster of emotions over several years. However, throughout all the bleak periods of her life, she managed to reach out for help, successfully parent her two teenage children, and restore herself to good health,” Pomeroy wrote of Jan.
Pomeroy wrote that the best way to help someone who is going through the sometimes-lengthy process of grieving a loss is to be empathetic towards the person and what they have lost.
“Although empathy has been used by social workers as a basic tool in practitioner-client communication, research during the past decade has examined the neuroscience at the core of this skill. Clearly, empathy is a key component in assisting a grieving child, adult, or family,” Pomeroy wrote.
Organizations such as Lewis’s are using the event to enact positive change or start preventative measures to stop events like this from happening in the future. Many of the prominent charities include the Boston-based Safe & Sound Schools which is focused on school safety and the Catherine Violet Hubbard Foundation which focuses on animal conservation.
The Sandy Hook Promise is the most well-known of these charities that came post-shooting, however. According to the charity’s co-founder Mark Barden, their mission is to “prevent gun-related deaths … so that no parent experiences the senseless, horrific loss of their child.”
Barden lost his son in the attack that fateful day. Since then he has dedicated his life to helping people learn the signs of whether someone will hurt themselves or other people before it is too late.
“Our shooter gave off signs for many months, and we know that many others since have as well. We want to be able to teach people that these tragedies are preventable when we know the signs,” Barden said.
Connecticut Governor Dannel Malloy created Sandy Hook Advisory Commision in 2013 to figure out what possible motives Lanza may have had to terrorize the school. It appears to agree with what Barden was saying before: while the group does not know what type of mental illness Lanza had (e.g. psychotic or personality based), they do believe it is important to look for the risk factors of what may cause someone to commit such a heinous act without stigmatizing people with mental illnesses in general. External factors like parental and/or substance abuse and internal factors such as high levels of anger are considered signs to look out for when identifying a potentially dangerous individual.
The SHAC has recommended massive amounts of gun control reform in the state such as mandatory background checks for every weapon (approved and adopted) and requiring gun licenses and firearm permits to be renewed on a regular basis (not approved nor adopted).
The lack of considerable federal gun control reform was noted by the nation as a whole. In particular, Former President Barack Obama considers the lack of legislation after Sandy Hook, such as the failed ban on assault weapons in 2013, the “biggest disappointment” of his career in an interview with NBC News.
The assault rifle used in the school, a magazine and the rifle used against Lanza’s mother (source: Sandy Hook Advisory Commission)
“I thought that ‘okay, this has to be a catalyst for some action by Congress.’ I didn’t expect some huge movement on gun safety legislation but I thought ‘well, they’re going to have to make some effort.’ And the fact that it didn’t even get the kind of hearing and votes that you would have expected… you had bipartisan legislature and it didn’t even matter,” Obama said in January 2017.
According to Barden, the Sandy Hook Promise was a major reason that President Obama was able to reform mental health issues as part of the 21st Century Cures Act that he signed into law in December 2016.
Regardless, there was very little change at a legislative level and (along with the Aurora, Colorado shooting in August 2012) kick started a trend of mass shootings across the country. In particular, the Pulse Nightclub shooting in Orlando, Florida in June 2016 and the Las Vegas shooting in October 2017 were both far deadlier than Sandy Hook shooting, with Vegas in particular having more than double the casualties of it.
The five deadliest shootings of the past five years in the United States (source: Gun Violence Archive)
While Barden knows that Connecticut will be forever impacted by this day, his organization has focused much more on national legislation. Sandy Hook Promise is based in Newtown, but has field offices in Florida, Massachusetts, Ohio, Washington, D.C. and California. They have not made public appearances and calls for help for a while, but do occasionally help those affected by other mass shootings such as the Disarm Hate Rally that happened in August 2016 to support the victims of the Pulse Nightclub shooting.
Changes were also able to be made at the site of the attack itself. The Newtown Board of Education is trying to maintain a positive atmosphere for the children attending the town’s elementary schools.
One Board of Education member, who requested to remain anonymous, says that several programs started in the years following the shooting to create a productive future for the town.
The board spearheaded many changes and new organizations to the school including the climate and culture committee, the teacher forum and a new daycare for faculty members.
Regardless, the town will be affected by this for a long time and is still in the process of recovery.
“It’s still a process. It’s still difficult. It’s going to take time to heal all wounds,” the Board of Education Member said, trembling.
Newtown resident KC Mills agrees with that sentiment. She lives roughly one mile away from the school, and can recall what happened to her that day as if it had just happened.
Originally from New Hampshire, Mills had four friends driving into Newtown to pick her up to go shopping and head down to New York City. When the news of a shooting broke out, they were only ten minutes away from her house.
Once her friends arrived, they went to the Danbury mall to relax and find out what was happening while away from the town. Mills was not prepared for what her husband would tell her.
“I asked my husband who was a policeman to see what was going on,” Mills said. “We went to the Danbury mall and when we were having lunch, my husband called me back and said that they think there are 20 people dead and mostly believed to be children. You just don’t want to believe it, like you want to tell them you’re wrong. We got back home and… we know what happened.”
Michelle Babyak, one of Mills’s friends, is a photographer who lives in Newtown. She was not planning to be with Mills that day, but had considered taking pictures of the shooting to document history. However, she was not emotionally able to handle the tragedy as it was unfolding.
While she is able to cover events related to the attack five years later, she remembers the tragedy hitting too close to home.
“I was not comfortable covering certain things (involving the shooting) at the beginning,” Babyak said. “I am covering the mass for the anniversary this year, but it’s just for the church. I felt as a photographer I should document it, but it made me very uncomfortable so I didn’t do a lot.”
It took some time for the public to find out what happened that day, which greatly worried Babyak, whose son was a junior at a nearby high school at the time of the shooting.
“It was crazy, not knowing what was going on was probably the worst part of it all. I didn’t have anybody in Sandy Hook, my son went to the high school about a mile through the woods. It was scary having my son, who was a junior at the time, in lockdown and it was scary not knowing if… all the reports were accurate. We really didn’t know if there was another shooter,” Babyak said.
Mills, like many people in the United States, has to ask herself tough questions when it comes to such tragic events, like if she has become desensitized to gun violence or how well people affected have recovered since that day.
“I think some have recovered and some haven’t. One of the big things is how people feel about guns… I think the town is doing the best they can… It’s become common. It’s not a gut-wrenching reaction that I have for the first three or four, (I find myself asking) ‘have I become numb to these horrific acts?’” Mills said.
Despite that sentiment, Mills hopes the town is able to move forward in the future, for the sake of the children who bore the brunt of trauma from that day.
“I think of the children who survived, like our friend’s daughter. Will she ever have a normal life? She still can’t handle fireworks… she should have been a happy little girl,” said Mills.
In the weeks after the shooting, she was not happy with the attention brought to her town. When someone found out she was from Newtown while out shopping, Babyak “…felt uncomfortable because you just wanted to be in Newtown with people who could support you rather than onlookers… you kind of just wanted to sit at home.”
More than anything, what the town wants to do is to create lasting change from the infamous day and create positive and lasting influence in preventing mass shootings like this from ever happening again.
This is one of several ways that the town itself is trying to honor the children and adults from that day: never forgetting, but making sure it does not shroud the event in painful feelings.
The parents, the charities, the Newtown Board of Education and the Newtown residents still struggle to move forward from the event, but know that the only way to move past tragedy is to give as much positive impact to the world as they can.
“We don’t define love. Love could mean different things to different people… what we teach is how to have healthy relationships, deep meaningful relationships,” Lewis said.
“We also have and amazing group of almost 3,000 Promise Leaders, who help us bring our programs into school and communities around the country, help advocate for change and support sensible policy where they live,” Barden said.
