100% completion of student sexual harassment training

Harvard College mandated for the first time this year that undergraduates complete an online sexual harassment training, or else face consequences. Failure to complete the module, college administrators warned over the summer, would result in students being barred from enrolling in classes, writes Jamie D Halper for The Harvard Crimson.

The hardline approach seems to have worked. Every degree-seeking Harvard College student enrolled for the fall term has completed the training, according to the college’s Title IX Coordinator Emily J Miller. The move comes after years of student activism – and at least one university-wide report – recommending mandatory training around sexual harassment prevention and response. Previously, students did not face repercussions for failing to complete trainings, even if those trainings were labelled as mandatory.

Miller wrote in an email that this year’s 100% completion rate was unprecedented. “We have never been able to say that before,” she wrote. “I am grateful to the students and colleagues who worked hard to make that a reality this year.” The college instituted its online training modules in 2016 after a 2015 sexual conduct climate survey found that 31% of female undergraduate seniors at the time had experienced “non-consensual sexual contact.”
Full report on The Harvard Crimson site