For the past two years, Appalachian has been working intensely on several initiatives to improve the climate of safety on our campus. While ensuring student safety has been Chancellor Peacock’s longtime top priority, a specific incident of interpersonal violence led to Appalachian being the subject of a complaint with the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) in February 2012. Shortly thereafter, OCR proposed a resolution agreement with Appalachian, which led to a several initiatives and actions. These included implementing a safety climate survey and spinning up an Interpersonal Violence Task Force, which in turn, made several recommendations to Chancellor Peacock. In February 2014, OCR determined Appalachian had resolved and satisfied our agreement with them, and they closed our case.

I invite you to listen to a recent podcast, which explains some of the results from the safety climate survey and recommendations from the Interpersonal Violence Task Force, discusses specific actions Appalachian has taken, and looks forward at the work Appalachian is committed to continuing.

Click here to listen.

Your Dean of Students,
J.J. Brown