RED FLAGS OF COURAGE
Heather Sprinkle, Couriernews.com
August 29, 2012
When associate sociology professor Julie Mikles-Schluterman received a call in July from the White House, she didn’t really know what to expect or think.
Immediately, the Arkansas Tech University professor wondered who was calling her and why.
As it turned out, the phone call was an interview with Mikles-Schluterman to learn more about the Red Flag Campaign she has spearheaded the last two springs on the Arkansas Tech campus.
She received an email last week stating Arkansas Tech would be featured on a White House blog during the week of Aug. 27-31.
“I’m not sure why they chose to feature Arkansas Tech,” Mikles-Schluterman. “I’m excited not just about the privilege of our university being mentioned on the blog, but about the awareness it will raise for the Red Flag Campaign and its cause.”
The Red Flag Campaign in a national campaign that many colleges and universities participate in at various times throughout the year. The campaign is a project of the Virginia Sexual and Domestic Violence Action Alliance to address dating violence and promote the prevention of dating violence on college campuses
Mikles-Schluterman said she looked into bringing the program to Tech after several students shared personal stories with her while taking one of her sociology classes.
“Sometimes they would come to me after hours and share stories about their own personal situations and experiences,” Mikles-Schluterman said. “I always sent them to the counselor’s office, but it was through the students that I really became aware of the need for education about domestic violence among students. I thought to myself, ‘This is scary.’”
Mikles-Schluterman said the program varied each year on campus, but the response did not. She said the students have been overwhelmingly supportive, both male and female.
She chose to participate in the campaign during April, which is national sexual assault awareness month.
Each April, volunteers place red flags in a central location the day before the campaign begins to peek student and faculty interest.
In 2011, there was a silent victim display that included red cutouts that told the story of a victim of domestic violence that resulted in a death in Arkansas.
In 2012, the Clothesline Project was brought on campus. The project includes white T-shirts decorated by a family member who lost a loved one to domestic violence. Mikles-Schluterman said each state has its own Clothesline Project.
“Both projects were very moving,” she said. “They are a memorial to victims of domestic violence and their stories are very powerful. The River Valley Battered Women’s Shelter has really been a great supporter of the Red Flag Campaign and helped us each year.”
Mikles-Schluterman said in April a junior approached her about volunteering at the 2012 event. Mikles-Schluterman said the student shared her own personal reasons for wanting to help spread the word about red flags to look for in relationships.
“She said it was during the Red Flag Campaign in 2011 that she realized she was in an abusive relationship and got out,” Mikles-Schluterman said. “She didn’t even realize the relationship was dangerous until the campaign. I want to take this campaign to the high schools in the area because that it is when most students begin learning how to date and what is, and is not appropriate.”
Mikles-Schluterman said the young girl’s professor offered extra credit to anyone who attended the event in 2011 and the student’s boyfriend wouldn’t allow her to go. She told Mikles-Schluterman that he monitored every move she made and that she had to ask permission to go anywhere.
When her boyfriend forbade her to go, she “snuck out” because she wanted the extra credit.
Mikles-Schluterman said the fact that the student’s boyfriend was threated by the event and that the female student felt confident enough to leave an abusive relationship is proof positive that the Red Flag Campaign works.
To read the White House blog, visit www.whitehouse.gov/1is2many/
To learn more about the Red Flag Campaign, go to www.theredflagcampaign.org.
Relationship red flags from the campaign
• Sexual assault — If I want to get some, I just need to get her wasted.
• Emotional abuse — He makes me think I'm fat and stupid and no one else would want me.
• Stalking — We broke up six months ago. Why can't he/she just leave me alone?
• Coercion — He said if I really loved him, I'd sleep with him.
• Victim blaming — I didn't want to put her down in front of her friends, but she just wouldn't shut up.
• Isolation — She doesn't let me hang our with my friends. She says she should be enough.
• Excessive jealousy — I hate it when my boyfriend talks with other girls at parties.
• To read the White House blog, visit www.whitehouse.gov/1is2many/
• To learn more about the Red Flag campaign, go to www.theredflagcampaign.org.
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