No freshers turned up for Clare’s consent workshop
Women’s Officer mourned “huge step backwards” after nobody attended compulsory meeting
Clare College’s Women’s Officer has lambasted freshers at the college after nobody showed up for an obligatory workshop on consent.
The officer, who has been the representative for Women on the Union of Clare Students (UCS) since 2015 and is also on the committee of Clare-based charity “Cambridge for Consent”, took to Facebook to register her despair at turnout for the event on Tuesday.
In a post, which has subsequently been deleted, accompanying a picture of an empty auditorium, the Officer said “This is the number of Clare College freshers who thought it worth their time to show up to the consent workshops this morning, who thought that an hour out of their morning in Freshers' Week was too much to ask.”
She said that the workshop, which was set to be an hour long, “was a chance to collaboratively set the culture in College, to establish what is and isn't acceptable behaviour, especially when navigating consent and alcohol among 18-year-olds who have probably never had an open and engaged conversation about sexual consent before.”
In the comments on the post, which was made public, the Officer said that the College had designated the workshop as “compulsory”. She also said that students had been reminded several times about the timing of the meeting.
The workshop was timed on the same morning as the opening of CUSU’s Freshers’ Fair, which takes place over two days on Parker’s Piece and in Kelsey Kerridge sports centre.
The post said that “Clare has been leading the colleges in taking a proactive approach to dealing with sexual assault in Cambridge...and to cement active, enthusiastic and informed consent as the norm in our student body.”
“This feels like a huge step backwards,” she wrote.
CUSU Women’s Officer Audrey Sebatindira was similarly disappointed, noting that "In the 2014 Cambridge Speaks Out survey, 77% of respondents had experienced sexual harassment while at Cambridge.
“Given how pervasive the problem is there's no doubt that the consent workshops are necessary and more people should appreciate that”, she continued.
However, she said had been encouraged by her feedback from other colleges.
A University spokesperson said: "The consent classes are a key part of our students' introduction to university life, they are included in College induction programmes, and students are strongly encouraged to attend."
A Facebook post from UCS’ Laura Minoli cited “various points of miscommunication” as the source of the no-show, but did not go into specifics.
It clarified that the workshop had been rearranged for 5pm Wednesday and emphasised that it was viewed as a compulsory part of the Freshers' Week induction programme
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