In the wake of the March 15 abduction on campus, LSU Student Government senators have proposed a bill to raise awareness of SG’s “We’re Committed” campaign. According to the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network, 11.2 percent of all collegiate students experience rape or sexual assault.
E. J. Ourso College of Business senator John Fourcade and College of Humanities and Social Sciences senator Sarah Perkins, along with the assistance of We’re Committed director Camille Faircloth, created SG Finance Bill 14 to allocate funds for the creation of coffee sleeves donning the We’re Committed logo.
“[We’re Committed] already had the idea, it was just a matter of waiting for [a design for] the sleeves and then get a quote from the company and then actually placing the order after writing the finance bill,” Perkins said.
The finance bill posed to the senate floor on Wednesday night requested “to allocate a maximum of $285.60 from the Student Government Initiatives account to fund 3,600 coffee sleeves to raise awareness of sexual violence through the We’re Committed campaign,” according to the senate records.
The coffee sleeves, designed by digital advertising senior and SG chief of staff Drake Boudreaux, will don the We’re Committed logo along with the saying “consent is hot, assault is not,” and a link to the We’re Committed website.
“If nothing else, [the coffee sleeves] will provoke and maybe incite some more dialogue and conversation that’s really important, at times like this on campus, about sexual violence and assault,” Perkins said. “Everybody drinks coffee, it’s great.”
The finance bill, which passed the Senate unanimously, gives the green light for the first run of coffee sleeves to be distributed on campus. The initial 3,600 sleeves will be ordered by the Student Health Center and be seen around the middle to end of April, which is Sexual Assault Awareness Month, in all coffee shops on campus.
Before the finance bill passed through Senate, the committee urged Fourcade and Perkins to amend the bill and ask for additional funding for more sleeves as the idea was received so well, Perkins said.
“If this goes well and we see the effects working, We’re Committed week is in … the fall semester, I could see them pushing for another one and making it a more regular thing,” Perkins said.
The University’s We’re Committed campaign “is the university initiative to end sexual violence and create and maintain a community of respect,” according to the SG website.
For more information and resources, visit lsu.edu/werecommitted.