The Office of Institutional Equity is currently accepting applications for students to join the newly created Title IX Student Advisory Board. The board will meet periodically to provide guidance and perspective to the office in the creation and execution of Title IX policies at Oberlin.

This new committee was prompted by a recommendation from the Interagency Task Force on Sexual Violence in Education, created by The Violence Against Women Act Reauthorization Act of 2022. The recommendation was sent out in November 2024. It provided an outline of how institutions could prevent and react to sexual violence. Oberlin was already following most of the guidance but did not have a formal student advisory board as the Task Force suggested.

According to Director of the Office for Institutional Equity and Title IX Coordinator Rebecca Mosely, who will be facilitating and leading the meetings of this board, there has not been a Title IX Student Advisory Board at Oberlin College for at least the past twenty years. 

“We have informally done this type of consultation in the past with the PRSM trainers but felt it was important to expand this to students who were not working for our office,” Mosely wrote in an email to the Review. 

According to  Mosely, another reason behind the creation of the board was concerns expressed by students regarding communication issues between the Office of Institutional Equity and students. 

College third-year Sydney Epstein, who shared her negative experience with Oberlin’s Office of Institutional Equity with the Review (“Students File Complaints Against Oberlin Office for Institutional Equity,” The Oberlin Review, Dec. 6, 2024), said that the creation of the board was a step in the right direction. She documented her experiences with the office in a proceeding with the Department of Education Office of Civil Rights.

“The Title IX student advisory board was an idea that myself along with other students asked the College to implement during our meetings with them throughout the [Office of Civil Rights] process,” Epstein wrote to the Review. “I’m excited that this is finally coming to fruition and hope that they are able to make positive changes to Oberlin’s Title IX policy. As of now, we don’t have a lot of information about what this will look like in practice, but it’s a good first step to Oberlin reforming their Title IX policies.”

Mosely said that she wishes to remedy this divide. According to her, the board will serve as a way for students to bridge the gap, providing feedback to the Office of Institutional Equity and suggestions for new and old policies.  

Other responsibilities for student advisory board members include introductory training, participating in regular meetings throughout the semester, and assisting with reviews of the Title IX Sexual Misconduct Policy. The board will meet on the last Friday of September, October, November, February, March, and April beginning next academic year.

The terms for board members last one year, and members must reapply if they wish to work another year in order to maintain a diverse group of individuals and identities. Positions on the board are unpaid. 

“If students want to be part of learning more about the work of the office on campus and helping to inform the future work of the office, this group is for them,” Mosely wrote.