Painful past experiences were exchanged last week as students and adults shared their concerns over how sexual assault charges are handled at Central Connecticut State University.

Constructed by President Dr. Zulma Toro, the Sexual Misconduct Task Force held two open forums to hear from the CCSU community as to how future cases of sexual assault should be handled, as well as receive constructive criticism in the future.

Richard Spada, head of the task force, emphasized that the group were looking for methods of handling sexual misconduct from various other sources.

Jeremy Visone, task force member and assistant professor that stated the force is “trying to look at other campuses and their practices to see how [CCSU] can improve,” specifically focusing on “other campuses, businesses, advocacy groups that are experts in this practice.”

Fifteen speakers spoke during the forum, but Shannon Cunningham and Talia Maselli stood out, sharing that they were both sexual assault survivors.

“The university patted themselves on the back for setting this task force up and everyone wants to praise President Toro for it, but President Toro didn’t do it,” Maselli said. “The survivors who spoke out last year did it. Our stories, our voices—we created this task force. Since it has been created, not a single one of us survivors who made it happen have been contacted or talked to.”

Cunningham also took to the microphone and pointed out that the task groups before this one had failed to believe her, and that they had failed to perform any actions against her offender.

In response, Spada said he hopes that the task force will be able to properly assess “what is working well [and] what’s not working well.” He also stated that current processes and what different offices on campus are doing to create a safe environment will be evaluated for effectiveness.  Spada also stated that they wanted to present results of these practices to Dr. Toro.

“There are a variety of different ways [we will improve], ways of listening and implementing feedback,” Spada said in a late interview. “One is the invitation for people to come to the task forces and to speak up at the Task Forces or to anonymously put in their input and feedback.”

“The task force members will very seriously take into account all of the issues and concerns that members of the campus community brought to our attention as we move forward in evalutaing current policies and procedures and make recommendations to the administration,” Sociology Professor Fiona Pearson added.

Central’s Student Government Association President Kassandra Fruin, who is not part of the task force but attended the first open forum, shared her input on how she thought the university could improve in handling sexual assault allegations in the future.

“One thing I wish could happen in the future is reaching students on campus whom may have not been interested in attending an event like this. There are different avenues that the task force can take that are less intimidating than an open forum, and I think taking a different approach to reach a bigger population on campus will be extremely beneficial,” Fruin said.

The task force is planning to release a survey on or around Oct. 1, according to Spada, in order to gain insight and how to best approach future cases. The task force and their members can be found at http://www.ccsu.edu/CultureTaskForce/.