Sexual Assault Awareness Week and “hitting” target populations are two main goals of NIU’s Sexual Assault Task Force for the spring semester.

Martha Ruel, assistant university judicial officer, said the task force has set goals that will educate students, faculty and staff about sexual assault and abuse.

Educational programs in the form of lectures and films will encompass the majority of the activities, Ruel said. Awareness Week is still in the planning stages, but she said they would like to have it in the first few weeks of April.

In the past several years, the task force began to gather statistics on the occurrence of sexual assaults and abuses, Ruel said. One study found more assaults occur around April, which is the reason to conduct the awareness week at that time, she said.

However, Ruel said the statistics might not be accurate because the task force just recently started to keep statistics. Another reason for possible inaccuracies is more persons might have reported assaults around that time, she said.

Freshmen are the task force’s target population, who the task force would like to educate about assault and abuse, Ruel said.

Greek Row is one place that will be emphasized as to where sexual assaults happen, Ruel said. Statistically, more assaults do not happen in the Greek Row area, but that is a plausible place for an assault, she said.

The task force also will train students, faculty and staff to conduct speeches on sexual assault prevention tactics. The speeches will be given to residential groups on and off campus, she said.

The Sexual Assault Response Team is a part of the task force which is “in charge of working up reports,” Ruel said. She said SART members are trained to respond to sexual assaults and abuses.

She said the team is planning on going to other off-campus organizations, such as the Kishwaukee Community Hospital, to start programs to ensure the best possible care programs.

SART will be sending out its report this week which contains statistics on where and how assaults occurred in 1987, Ruel said. The report also contains interviews with students that were assaulted or abused, she said.

The next meeting will be Feb. 11 at 8 a.m. in Neptune Hall’s southeast conference room.

Members of the task force include representatives from the University Police, the University Health Center, the Judicial Office and the Counseling and Student Development Center, Ruel said.