A student confides in their resident assistant late at night, sharing that something has happened.
They don’t need to have the right words. They don’t need to know what comes next. In that moment, being heard and supported is enough.
That conversation activates Michigan State University’s Center for Survivors Crisis Advocate Response. A trained volunteer advocate responds in real time, meeting the studentwhere they are — physically and emotionally — with care, patience and respect for their choices.
If the student wishes, the advocate can stay with them and provide transportation to the Student Services building, where the on-campus Sexual Assault Healthcare Program, where they can access medical care in a quiet, private setting and begin connecting to additional resources. At every step, the student sets the pace. They are supported and empowered to make decisions that feel right for them.
A few years ago, this kind of coordinated response didn’t exist on campus.
What the student encounters now is part of a broader shift that Michigan State has been working toward over the better part of a decade. It’s an effort to rethink how a university responds to relationship violence and sexual misconduct, or RVSM; it’s about creating a process that addresses how people access care, how on-campus systems connect, and where gaps remain.
Carrie Moylan has spent more than two decades working in the gender-based violence field, first as a practitioner, showing up for survivors in the hardest moments of their lives, and then as a researcher, trying to understand what actually helps them heal. Today, as the director of MSU’s School of Social Work and co-chair of the university’s Relationship Violence and Sexual Misconduct Expert Advisory Workgroup, or RVSM Workgroup, she holds both of those identities at once.
That combination is exactly what this moment at Michigan State requires. The five-year RVSM Strategic Plan that the RVSM Workgroup launched in 2021 has formally reached the end of its original cycle. The data is in. The infrastructure is in place. And now Moylan and her co-chair, Stephanie Anthony, director of the Office of College Access Initiatives and former vice chairperson of the Faculty Senate, are focused on carrying the work forward under the leadership of President Kevin Guskiewicz, who, when he arrived at MSU in March 2024, gave the campus community this clear message: Every member of this university community deserves to be treated with dignity and respect.
To understand MSU’s trajectory regarding RVSM, it helps to better understand the building blocks that have laid the foundation to this initiative.
When the RVSM Expert Advisory Workgroup was formed in 2018 at the time of institutional crisis, it brought experts from multiple disciplines across campus to advise university leadership and help MSU navigate difficult times. It was an opportunity to bring expertise from the areas of prevention, relationship violence, sexual assault, law enforcementand Title IX, along with research and academic leadership.
Later, the workgroup moved to a model that called for two appointed co-chairs. Rebecca Campbell was — and remains — one of the nation’s foremost researchers on sexual violence, trauma and the ways institutions can either support or re-traumatize the survivors who turn to them for help. Deputy Chief (retired) Andrea Munford brought decades of law enforcement experience and a deep, practice-tested understanding of what trauma-informed investigation looks like from the inside.
The co-chairs anchored the work to develop a strategic plan in two nonnegotiable principles — that all RVSM work must be trauma-informed and intersectional — and they used the framework of Principles-Focused Evaluation to ensure the plan would be guided by enduring values rather than one-time tasks.
Together, they led the workgroup through more than five years of community listening, data collection and difficult institutional reckoning. They commissioned the first university-wide climate survey at MSU in 2019. It was called the Know More Campus Survey, which was administered independently by RTI International and completed by more than 15,000 students, faculty and staff.
“We heard clearly from MSU students, faculty, staff and alumni that we need a significant culture change in our institutional approach to RVSM,” Campbell said when the plan was released in spring 2021. “We have worked on identifying policies, programs, training and initiatives that will transform services and prevention and increase accountability.”
The plan produced by the workgroup was a five-year roadmap that organized seven initiatives around two core goals: increase help-seeking and decrease incidence. It gave the university a framework for measuring progress, holding itself accountable and continuing to evolve. When Campbell and Munford completed their terms as co-chairs in May 2023, they handed off a plan that was already bearing fruit and an institutional mindset that had been structurally transformed.
Moylan was not new to this work when she was appointed to the co-chair role. She had been a workgroup member since its earliest days, contributing her research expertise on higher education sexual assault policy and her practitioner’s instinct for survivor support. She had been active for the hard conversations, led the design and implementation of the Know More Survey, and provided meaningful input on policy changes. She knew the plan and what it would take to see it through.
Her co-chair, Stephanie Anthony, brought a different and equally essential perspective. Through her work directing college access programs for underrepresented youth and herprior leadership in the Faculty Senate, Anthony had spent years navigating the intersection of institutional power and community trust.
Together, they inherited a plan in motion and a university community that had been asked, repeatedly and in good faith, to believe that change was real and ongoing. Their job was — and is — to make sure it stays that way.
“When Dr. Anthony and I were appointed into these roles, we wanted to honor the foundation that Dr. Campbell and Deputy Chief (retired) Munford set and push the strategic plan to completion,” said Moylan. “With the close of the plan, we are looking forward to building on that legacy and introducing the next phase of sustaining a culture of care.”
President Guskiewicz, who has made it clear since arriving at MSU that survivor-centered care has his full support, has described the strategic plan as lear since arriving at MSU that survivor-centered care has his full support, has described the strategic plan as critical to identifying and implementing meaningful steps that support survivors, address harm and create a campus culture rooted in dignity and respect for all. Under his leadership, the university has launched an independent institutional assessment guided in part by survivors themselves and has continued emphasizing the importance of a culture of respect.
“At Michigan State University, it is our responsibility to be accountable for our history and seek opportunities for healing and continuous improvement,” Guskiewicz said. “This requires continuous improvement, sustained attention and a community-wide commitment to safety, respect and accountability.”
One of the most visible investments in the plan is the Sexual Assault Healthcare Program, launched in November 2020 within the MSU Center for Survivors, a unit of University Health and Wellbeing, or UHW. The first program of its kind on a college campus in the nation, it provides free, first-response medical care including injury assessment, sexually transmitted infection screening and treatment, emergency contraception as well as Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner, or SANE, exams, long recognized as a national best practice but typically available only through hospital emergency departments.
By embedding clinical care inside the Center for Survivors, MSU removed a significant barrier: Survivors can access medical services in the same trusted environment where they can also connect with advocacy and counseling. The program was initially funded by MSU and a $1.8 million grant from the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services.
The same logic shaped the development of the trauma-informed interview room — a victim-centered space co-located at the Center for Survivors where law enforcement can take reports. The campus Sexual Assault Response Team, or SART, identified that survivors’ experiences with reporting varied greatly depending on the jurisdiction where the crime occurred. The 2019 climate survey reinforced this concern, identifying fear of blame and poor treatment as major deterrents to formal reporting. A dedicated space, designed around survivors’ comfort rather than institutional procedure, was a direct response to what the community said it needed. Today, the trauma-informed interview room is used by law enforcement jurisdictions across the state.
“What we wanted to create was a place where someone could come in and feel that everything — the space, the people, the process — was organized around them and what they need,” said Tana Fedewa, executive director of MSU’s Center for Survivors and workgroup member. “For many, reaching out is already difficult. Our responsibility is to make sure the experience that follows is clear, supportive and centered on their sense of safety and control.”
In 2022, the Center for Survivors launched a 24-hour Sexual Assault Advocacy Response Program, training volunteer advocates to be dispatched to residence halls the moment a student discloses a sexual assault to a housing staff member. The initiative recognized a hard finding in the survey data: Nearly 20% of rapes on campus occur in residence halls, and first-year students carry the highest risk.
When a student discloses, an advocate comes to them within minutes. They are not asked to make a phone call or navigate a system on their own. That choice reflects what the university believes students who have been impacted by harm deserve — a caring response.
In 2023, the Center for Survivors was restructured to bring MSU Safe Place — the nation’s first campus-based domestic violence shelter program, founded in 1994 — under the same organizational roof, aligning relationship violence and sexual misconduct response services in a more integrated and accessible structure. This came after CFS joined UHW, a new MAU on campus charged with supporting physical health, mental health, and social wellbeing, in 2022.
“Bringing Safe Place into the Center for Survivors was a recognition that intimate partner violence, stalking and sexual misconduct don’t exist in separate silos for survivors, so our services shouldn’t either,” said Fedewa. “When someone comes to us, they shouldn’t have to navigate between two different offices to get the help they need.”
MSU’s Prevention, Outreach and Education Department, which was created in 2018 and celebrated its fifth anniversary in 2024, has grown into the largest prevention department in the Big Ten. With 14 full-time staff and more than 80 undergraduate peer educators, POE reaches students, faculty and staff at every stage of their MSU career through required workshops and online training modules, as well as elective and unit-specific programming.
All first-year undergraduates complete the Sexual Assault and Relationship Violence Prevention Workshop. Second-year students receive bystander intervention training through the Bystander Network Workshop. Upper-level students engage in online refreshers and awareness campaigns. Faculty and staff complete required online modules with options for enhanced in-person sessions. Student-athletes and students engaged in fraternity and sorority life also receive targeted RVSM training.
“Prevention is a sustained, multi-tiered approach,” said Kelly Schweda, executive director of POE and workgroup member. “What we’ve built here is a continuum that follows students from the day they arrive on campus to the day they graduate, and that reaches faculty and staff in ways that are relevant to their specific roles and communities. That’swhat it actually takes to shift culture.”
In 2021, MSU created the Student Voice for Prevention Initiatives, or SVPI, a standing undergraduate advisory council drawing from diverse registered student organizations. The SVPI ensures that the students prevention programming is designed to reach are actually helping shape it.
The annual POE Faculty and Staff Summit, held annually each spring since 2019, brings faculty, staff and graduate students together to examine critical topics such as how power and privilege impact work environments, strategies for preventing RVSM, and practical approaches for strengthening the climate in positive ways.
In 2022, the Support More initiative launched as the most visible public expression of the strategic plan’s culture-change goals. Anchored by a dedicated website and accompanied by videos, posters and brochures distributed across campus, Support More gave every member of the MSU community a concrete guide for responding to disclosures — what to say, what to avoid and how to connect someone to care.
“Support More came out of a recognition that most people disclose harm to a friend or someone close to them,” said Moylan. “We wanted to give the whole community something concrete: practical language, practical steps. Because when a student finally tells someone what happened to them, that moment matters. How the person they told responds can either open a door or close one.”
Changing culture requires changing policy. MSU has overhauled its policy and accountability infrastructure substantially since 2018. The Discipline and Dismissal of Tenured Faculty for Cause Policy was updated in 2022 with unanimous support from all levels of university leadership, establishing a standard timeline for handling faculty discipline and building in greater transparency and consistency. Six former faculty members subsequently had their emeritus status revoked following a historical review of RVSM policy violations.
The RVSM and Title IX Policy was updated in 2020 with clear definitions of prohibited conduct aligned with community expectations. A new Mandatory Reporting for Relationship Violence, Sexual Misconduct and Stalking Policy — previously a protocol — was formalized in 2023. That same year, a new Professional Standards Policy outlined expectations for faculty and academic staff as part of a broader effort to define what respectful conduct means institution-wide.
A dedicated Personnel File Policy now requires that all findings from Title IX investigations be placed in the applicable employee’s permanent record, whether or not a violation is found. Faculty and Academic Staff Affairs, or FASA, established notification protocols so that deans and department chairs are alerted when misconduct allegations arise in their units, enabling interim action when needed. A Self-Disclosure Requirement of Unprofessional or Criminal Conduct was created, requiring faculty and academic staff to report certain misconduct events during their employment. MSU is now also implementing a program called “preventing passing the harasser” by strengthening hiring practices to prevent hiring faculty and staff with known misconduct histories, requiring disclosures from job candidates.
On the civil rights compliance front, the Office for Civil Rights and Title IX Education and Compliance, or OCR, has been substantially invested in and restructured. The university made a structural decision in 2018 to make OCR a stand-alone office.
Rather than dispersing responsibility across multiple units, the university brought key functions under one umbrella — housing the Investigation, Support and Resolution Department; the Prevention, Outreach and Education Department; and the Office of the ADA Coordinator in a single, coordinated structure. The goal was to streamline how the university prevents harm, responds to it and ensures compliance.
“The structure we have now reflects a true integrated systems model. It is one grounded in the understanding that preventing harm, responding to it and ensuring accountability aren’t separate functions, but interconnected efforts that inform and strengthen one another,” said Laura Rugless, vice president of OCR and Title IX and Title VI coordinator. “When a report is filed, our job is to make the path clear and to make sure that every point of contact along that path is grounded in care and fairness for everyone involved.”
That structure has continued to evolve. In 2024, what was previously known as the Office of Institutional Equity was renamed the Investigation, Support and Resolution Department, or ISR, to better reflect its role. An eight-person Support and Intake Team within ISR now serves as the consolidated point of entry, designed to bring together information cohesively and consistently and ensure supportive measures are discussed at the earliest juncture.
The appointment in 2023 of a new vice president and Title IX coordinator, who now also serves as the Title VI coordinator, elevated the role within senior administration, signaling a shift in how the work is prioritized and embedded throughout the university.
External reviews have helped shape the office’s direction. A 2022 assessment by the Detroit Consulting Group highlighted the potential for using metrics to inform OCR’s work,which has, over time, evolved to include a publicly shared OCR Data Dashboard. In addition, a second review by Cozen O’Connor noted the university’s continued investment in staffing and systems.
The result is a more centralized and coordinated approach intended to reduce fragmentation and make the system easier to navigate.
As the five-year strategic plan reaches the end of its original cycle, the RVSM Workgroup is actively reviewing the strategic plan for its next chapter, using the 2025 survey findings to identify where prevention programming, survivor services and institutional policy must be strengthened. The 2025 survey also marked the first time MSU extended the topics to measure domestic violence experiences among faculty and staff, expanding the university’s understanding of how relationship violence affects its entire community, not only students.
“The completion of the five-year plan isn’t an ending,” said Moylan. “We now have something we didn’t have in 2018: longitudinal data, a tested infrastructure and a universitycommunity that has demonstrated it is willing to engage with this work honestly.”
She went on to say that this puts MSU in a genuinely different position to ask: What does the next chapter need to focus on? And the 2025 survey results are already helping to answer that question.
The work is not finished. The people leading it are the first to say so. But at Michigan State, this work has evolved — systematically, transparently and, increasingly, measurably — and the community it serves is beginning to feel the difference.