Journal

Vocabulary:

TIX = Title IX

RJ = restorative justice

The RJ Working Team:

• Katie = Katie Schmalzel, Director of Title IX Programs + Interim Title IX Coordinator

• Sareen = Sareen Lambright Dale, Prevention Programs Manager

• Kendall = Kendall Fowler, Title IX Intern

• Nick = Nick Dokkin, Residence Life Coordinator

Tuesday, June 23rd

Today was the first RJ working team meeting. Katie and Sareen were great as usual, it was nice to “see” Kendall again, and Nick Dokkin seems really nice and passionate so he fits in well.

We discussed what needs to be done to get the RJ procedures ready for approval by the school on August 10th. Kendall and I have been tasked with the Facilitation Guide. It’s supposed to include scripts for different conference types, vocabulary, forms, and other info that may be useful for facilitators through the RJ process. We agreed to try to have substantial drafts in two weeks by the time of our next meeting on July 7th or 9th.

The group had met a couple of times before today while I was busy in field camp, so they made sure to send me all the things they worked on and tried to get me caught up. They have a very detailed OneDrive with resources and references and the current working docs.

I was initially worried when I was asked to help with restorative justice procedures for Title IX. Restorative justice doesn’t have a great reputation as always being survivor-centric and effective in sexual violence situations. After hearing about what the group thought and their hopes and ideas to best address this issue, I definitely feel better about their intentions and can see that they are really passionate about making RJ as effective and beneficial to our community as possible. I’m excited to see what we come up with.

Thursday, June 25th

Kendall and I met to discuss the Facilitation Guide for the first time. She shared a brainstorming document and a table of contents for the guide (which is looking to be a very lengthy document) with me in the morning a few hours before our meeting. I took a look and added a few ideas to the brainstorming doc and made some comments (which was honestly a bit tricky to figure out, OneDrive ain’t that user-friendly). Kendall was really on top of things; she recorded a bunch of ideas before the meeting even started and I couldn’t figure out much that she missed. I definitely felt inferior. I had to remind myself that she has a lot more experience and is more knowledgeable on these topics, so it was natural to feel like I maybe didn’t have much to offer comparatively.

I agreed to get started on the script for an RJ conference and list of possible restorative actions. I got started right after the meeting. “The Little Book of Restorative Justice” had example scripts for conferences, so I started with that. I tried reformatting it, but decided that the book’s format really worked and I couldn’t find a better way. I took out some parts I thought were unnecessary or even just uncomfortable and I left some comments about other parts I was unsure about.

Monday, June 29th

I wanted to get the list of restorative actions ready for Kendall to look at before our meeting tomorrow. I came up with a few ideas on my own and then reached out to Katie and Sareen to see if they had come up with possible actions. They sent me a list they had come up with (which already included a few of my ideas). I also asked them about a few other ideas (specifically paying for therapy for the harmed party or having the harming party go to therapy which I think could be really beneficial) for restorative actions and what exactly would be possible to enforce. They said that was a good question and talked about the complications of them, but eventually came to some ideas on how we could offer therapy as an action for both sides. I felt like I contributed and helped Katie and Sareen figure something out, and it feels really good.

Tuesday, June 30th

Kendall and I had a meeting scheduled to get started on the Facilitation Guide, but she is sick so we decided to just communicate over email for the next week.

I went ahead and looked through what Kendall had done over the week. She had a great start. She had a lot of details for the majority of sections we decided to include. I went ahead and left some comments on what she had so far. I once again started to feel a bit inadequate having only contributed to the script and restorative actions list. I also worried that leaving comments on her stuff would come off as petty considering how little I had done, but I figured I needed to contribute and I was asked to help because I have a different perspective. Kendall is great, but working with her is really hard with how good she is. But I guess as long as we get it done, it’s okay?

Tuesday, July 7th

Kendall is feeling better and tested negative for COVID, yay!

She said that she couldn’t think of anything else that could be added at the moment, but she left a few comments for me to look over. We agreed to let it sit and wait for more feedback from the group on Thursday. Kendall suggested reformatting it to look nicer after Thursday, and I agreed that was a good idea. The content is really good, but the formatting could definitely be improved.

Thursday, July 9th

The whole group met today to go over our drafts. I gave some suggestions, and got good feedback with Katie and Sareen saying I had good ideas - it felt great.

The Facilitation Guide is significantly longer than the other documents people were working on (we are past our initial 30 page goal), so we didn’t do a walk through like everyone else. Kendall had a few specific questions she wanted feedback on, so we asked about those. The others agreed to look over the document and leave comments on their own time so we could get more feedback on the rest of the document.

Wednesday, July 22nd

I was out of town for a week and unable to work on RJ stuff, but Kendall got started on reformatting. I took a look before our meeting and left a few comments about what I thought could be improved.

We had a meeting in the morning with a lot to talk about. At this point, we have the majority of all the documents needed drafted, so everyone just took turns and walked the group through their respective documents for comments and suggestions. I made a few suggestions again this morning, and was once again told they were good ideas - it was very validating.

After his RJ facilitator training that day, Nick let us know what the instructors said about surrogate participation in RJ conferences (something we had discussed in the meeting in the morning). He said that having a personal statement from the harmed party to be read by the surrogate could have a high impact, so Sareen asked if an guide/example could be added to the Facilitation Guide. Kendall responded first and offered to create the impact statement section, but I asked her if I could do it since I felt like I had not contributed enough. She said I could, so I started looking for examples of victim impact statements and guides to writing them. Reading through several was emotionally draining, so I decided to call it a day after a couple of hours. Katie and Sareen always push selfcare when dealing with these kind of topics, so I knew they’d want me to take a needed break.

To me, my need for a mental health break just reinforced how draining this process could be for survivors to go through, and it kind of revitalized me to work really hard to make restorative justice as beneficial as possible.

Tuesday, July 28th

Today, I worked a bit on my own trying to figure out what to do about the impact statement guide. I thought having an example might be good, but I realized it would A.) be hard to write a generic impact statement, and B.) an example may be too specific for someone to be able to use it to help them write their own. I looked at the James Madison University apology letter tips document we have and I tried to format my guide to be a bit like that with guiding questions with specific, purposeful parts. I came up with some questions I thought could help someone write an impact statement and then condensed them a bit into three questions to avoid being redundant. I honestly spent more time than what I would like to admit for how little I came up with.

Monday, August 3rd

At the beginning of today, I only had a couple of guiding questions for my impact statement guide.

I spoke with a friend who had an experience that I think could have benefited from RJ. He has given me some thoughts and feedback over the last few weeks while I worked on RJ stuff because he also agreed that he thinks the process could have helped him in recovery. I asked him what kind of stuff he wishes he could have told his harming party to help me figure out what to include in the impact statement guide I am creating. He actually offered to just write one, which surprised me since I figured that would be difficult for him to relive that experience. He wrote out the letter addressed to his harming party and sent it my way. I tried to split it up into a few different sections/topics. It did line up with the questions I had already (and then I added one more), but it also helped me elaborate upon my questions. Under each of the four guiding questions, I provided more details on the purpose of each section and what kind of details to include. My friend took a look and said he thought it was a pretty good guide. I still am unsure if what I came up with is enough, but I feel better.

Wednesday, August 5th

Today was our last group meeting. Nick and Sareen couldn’t make it, so it was just me, Katie, and Kendall. Kendall and I took the opportunity to walk Katie through the lengthy Facilitation Guide since she hadn’t had a chance to look over it in a while.

Katie didn’t have any edits she saw necessary; she really liked what we put together. I was worried about the “Surrogate Impact Letter” section that I was tasked with because I was worried I didn’t have enough. However, Katie said she actually really liked it and thought what I had was effective and enough to help people use it. I think what she said was that she “really liked it” and that it was “really good.” Hearing her approval meant a lot, especially since I was really unconfident about it. I am feeling a lot better about my contributions to the project.

Monday, August 10th

Not much to report today, only that the RJ procedures were approved by the school with minor language changes in a few parts. Our work over the summer came out successful and will hopefully make an impact on campus soon. Yay!

Friday, August 14th

Once again, not a lot to report. However, today is the day the new federal TIX changes from DeVos go into effect. I still hate the new regulations and am not happy with the government (a lot of us aren’t), but I feel a bit better knowing that RJ has the possibility to help a bit with the changes by offering an alternative resolution option for those on campus. I have hope that restorative justice will have the impact we’re hoping for.