Heather Horton

On March 1, Heather Horton began working as Colorado College’s first sexual assault response coordinator, a role in which she provides services aimed at preventing sexual assault and harassment in the CC community. Horton comes to CC from Florida, where she was a psychologist with a large public school system.

There are two main components to Horton’s job: counseling/advocacy for sexual assault victims and education.

In 2004, CC adopted a new policy on sexual assault that requires all sexual contact between students to have each person’s “active consent.” Active consent means that each person involved not only agrees to the activity, but also agrees to it freely and knowingly. In other words, a person cannot provide active consent while his or her ability to make decisions is affected by drugs, alcohol, or other physical or mental impairments.

Horton says student fears that the new active consent requirement would be cumbersome or “kill the romance” have been unfounded. “It’s really just about communicating with your partner and checking in to make sure things are working for both of you,” she said.

Another big part of Horton’s job will be educating the campus community. A broad range of educational activities will focus on information about the prevalence and impact of sexual assault, healthy sexuality, bystander intervention, and empowering survivors.

“We want to encourage people to actively look out for their friends and neighbors. If someone sees a friend drinking too much or in a dangerous situation, we want people to feel that it’s partly their responsibility as a member of this community to intervene and assist that person. It also means speaking up if you hear someone using derogatory or sexually demeaning language. It’s really about changing the culture to one that doesn’t tolerate rape,” Horton says.

The new CC student sexual misconduct policy can be found in the 2005-06 Pathfinder handbook online at: www.ColoradoCollege.edu/resources/pathfinder/pathfinder.asp.