York set to embrace sexual consent education

Sexual consent is one of the key welfare issues that the university are focusing for the new academic year and the arrival of the new 2014/2015 cohort of freshers.

One part of the university which is spearheading this new awareness campaign is James College. With Mike Britland, James’ College Officer, and College Tutor Anais Pedica dedicating part of the official James College Welcome Talk, for recently arrived freshers, to the subject of sexual consent.

College Officer Britland said he wanted to make sure that “All of our new students would understand how seriously we take it,and hopefully to educate them about how to avoid doing something that they’ll regret.” Freshers were informed that the ‘consensual’ nature of sexual relations is crucial as well as the difference between an active “yes” from an absence of a ”no”.

According to Britland, “the talk was well-recieved, and several students have told me since that they appreciate me talking about consent, and that unwanted sexual advances were something they had been worried about when coming to University”.

Mike and Anais have since shared the text of their talk with the other colleges and are working with YUSU President Sam Maguire on how they can take forward their consent education programme.

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