Workshop educates students about stalking

To call attention to January as National Stalking Awareness Month, the Women's Center and Housing and Residence Life hosted a workshop on January 21 to educate students on the facts and consequences of stalking.  

While most people who are stalked are women, men can also be stalking victims. Nationally, 13 percent of all college women were stalked, and three of every 10 college women are injured emotionally or physically from being stalked.

Herb Tanner, from the Prosecuting Attorney's Association of Michigan, led the workshop. Tanner identified stalking actions, and discussed national and local stalking cases. Anna DeHaan, from the Center for Women in Transition in Holland, spoke on how a victim can develop a safety plan to keep them as protected as possible from a stalker.

Tanner said stalking could cause severe emotional distress to the victim. "Generally if it doesn't feel right to continuously run into a person, then it isn't," he said. "It is considered illegal stalking behavior when it cannot be an accident as to why the stalker is at the same place the victim is."

In order for action to be taken to protect the victim, there must be evidence of two separate stalking acts, as well as evidence of continuous and repeated stalking behavior from the same person, Tanner said.

"Many times students don't know where to go, or who to ask for help when another person's behavior makes them uncomfortable," said JoAnn Wassenaar, associate director of the Women's Center. "When a student seeks help or advice from campus offices, such as Public Safety and the Women's Center, it gives them a sense of empowerment that they have control over what is happening in their life."

Wassenaar said if a student feels he or she is being stalked, that student should tell someone they trust, in addition to a resident advisor or multicultural assistant. Public Safety, the Women's Center and the Counseling Center all have staff members trained to assist students who are coping with a stalking situation. 

Herb Tanner singles out a student during a stalking workshop held in the Kirkhof Center on January 21 / Photo by Amanda Pitts