By Garrett Largoza, Contributing Writer ||
Janet Masland rose to the position of F&M’s Title XI coordinator Aug. 1. She replaced for David Proulx, vice president for finance and administration at the College, who held both his current position and the job of Title IX coordinator prior to Masland’s promotion.
Title IX is a piece of federal civil rights legislation that prohibits sex discrimination in education — not for just female students but for males, gender non-conforming students, faculty, and staff — and a Title IX coordinator is responsible for making sure that all services, policies, and procedures at F&M are compliant with the law. Title IX has extensive guidelines that outline its policies, explain how one should respond to victims of sexual assault, and dictate how the coordinator should adjudicate cases. Additionally, the law includes numerous regulations about reporting these incidents and specific requirements for treating victims.
Moreover, according to Masland, there are three basic things that Title IX requires of the Coordinator: stopping the offensive behavior, helping to rehabilitate the victim, and ensuring the behavior will be neither repeated nor continued. In order to stop the behavior, Masland has to identify who is doing it, investigate, and completely understand what the situation is so that she and her peers may take care of the victim. These tasks require her full attention, and, to help with her duties, additional staff will be hired.
As the former director of Student Health and Wellness Education and former director of Sexual Misconduct Services, Masland has lots of experience with peer health educators and developmental programs that lead to healthy student lifestyles. For example, she was responsible for overseeing bathroom stall signs, such as the ones informing students of alternatives to drinking past their limits. In the past, Masland was involved in the Counseling Services and Health Services’ sexual assault line, which is a confidential line.
Additionally, the Student Health Advisory Committee (SHAC) is one of Masland’s programs. Through this initiative, she learns about the health and wellness issues at the College and what she can do to inform students about these issues.
“There are topics that we tend to really focus on: nutrition, sleep, stress, anxiety, study skills—because that’s part of mental health,” Masland said. “There are more topics like healthy relationships, civility, and a lot on alcohol and drugs. We’ll do things every now and then on Tylenol over use or self examination and self care.”
First-year Garrett Largoza is a contributing writer. His email is glargoza@fandm.edu.