Students Teach Workshops on Sexual Consent

Sponsored by USF’s Title IX Office and Active* Consent, a University of Galway, Ireland, consent-education group, the peer-led workshops are now mandatory for club sports teams and Greek life participants.

In August, USF brought the Active* Consent team to campus for two days of training. A dozen student volunteers from the advisory board of the Resources, Education, Prevention, and Support (REPS) team from the Title IX office on campus, a volunteer university committee comprised of students, staff, and faculty, learned the 90-minute workshop curriculum. Since then, the students have led 12 workshops for student organizations across campus, and expect to lead 10 to 15 more in the spring semester.

“The Active* Consent workshops have been such an important part of the work we do,” said second-year nursing student Piper O’Bryan ’28, a workshop leader and REPS intern. “I believe all students should have access to information and resources to make healthy, empowering, and autonomous choices.”

Katrina Garry, the deputy Title IX coordinator at USF who leads the REPS initiative and conducts Title IX training for all of USF’s NCAA teams, resident advisers, tutors, ROTC members, student admissions officers, and chartered student organization executives, said she hopes these Active* Consent workshops are only the beginning.

“It was just an office of two when I started here at USF, and now the Title IX office consists of me, our Title IX Coordinator, Emily Gove, four REPS interns, and the 20 volunteers on the REPS advisory board,” Garry said.