FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. (UATV)–“That are a lot of flags and a lot of white flags, yeah,” said Senior Philippe Duyck.
Students walking by the Union have taken notice of the thousands of white and red flags planted in the Union lawn.
“Well there are a lot of flags, it’s kind of beautiful,” Graduate Assistant Torben Vhnhuffen said.
The flags may be aesthetically pleasing at first but upon closer inspection, the amount of flags represents a horrifying statistic. 3,309 white and 759 red flags were planted to show the national statistic that 1 in 4 females and 1 in 16 males experience sexual assault while attending college using the university’s spring enrollment numbers.
“So that when students walk by they can see you know this is the potential impact that sexual assault would happen on our campus,” said Star Central Graduate Assistant Maegan Michael.
Respect, a program under CAPS from the Pat Walker Health Center wanted to show students a visual representation to help raise awareness of sexual assault. The display is catching people’s attention and getting people into the conversation.
“It’s yes, it’s probably a problem then that’s underlying in society,” Vhnhuffen said.
“It’s kind of unfortunate, you know that, that I guess people would be violated in that kind of way,” said student Kareem Williams.
“But there has to be, there is a long way to go I think in this country until this problem is finally solved and a lot of stuff has to be done,” Uwe Holli said.
“And it doesn’t matter if it’s 1/16 or 1/10 the important thing is even if it was just one person, that is too much we should,” Valerie Killder said.
“Understand that we’re all human beings and to respect each other and each other’s boundaries,” Nate Parker said.
Respect hopes that displays such as this one will change the way students view sexual assault. They have several different events this month to engage with the community about the issues of sexual assault.
“But when you see it out there with those flags it cover the entire lawn outside of the union it kind of puts it in perspective for people,” Michael said.
Story by UATV Reporter Billy Quach