Update from Retriever Courage Implementation Team

From: Retriever Courage Implementation Team

Date: October 3, 2019

Following the September 18 Retriever Courage Gathering, our Implementation Team continues to move forward on improving sexual violence/misconduct prevention and response at UMBC. This fall, members of the Implementation Team will hold update meetings with student, faculty, and staff leaders to continue to listen and build partnerships for acting on this important work.

We also want to share an update that the lawsuit filed last year against UMBC, Baltimore County, and others related to the handling of sexual assault cases was dismissed on September 30 by U.S. District Judge Deborah K. Chasanow, who has given the plaintiffs three weeks to file a narrower complaint if they choose to do so.

The dismissal of this case does not change our commitment to ensuring that UMBC provides preventive education and training for all students, faculty, and staff, and a proactive, caring, and inclusive response to incidents of sexual and gender-based harassment and violence. 

Thank you for joining us in this important work. To stay up-to-date on actions underway, please visit the Retriever Courage dashboard.

And we encourage you to join us at one of the many campus events scheduled in October to observe Relationship Violence Awareness Month.

Retriever Courage Implementation Team

Lynne Schaefer, Co-chair, Vice President for Administration and Finance

Nancy Young, Co-chair, Vice President for Student Affairs

Nadia BenAissa ‘20, Co-chair, Student Advisory Committee

Candace Dodson-Reed ‘96, Chief of Staff and Executive Director of Equity and Inclusion, President’s Office

Elle Everhart, Co-Chair, Faculty/Staff Advisory Committee; Program Management Specialist, Gender, Women’s, and Sexuality Studies

Jodi Kelber-Kaye, Co-Chair, Faculty/Staff Advisory Committee; Associate Director, Honors College

Christine Mallinson, Co-Chair, Faculty/Staff Advisory Committee; Director of the Center for Social Science Scholarship; Professor of Language, Literacy, and Culture; affiliate faculty of Gender, Women’s, and Sexuality Studies

Susan McDonough, Co-Chair, Faculty/Staff Advisory Committee; Associate Professor of History; affiliate faculty of Gender, Women’s, and Sexuality Studies

Marcela Sarmiento Mellinger, Co-Chair, Faculty/Staff Advisory Committee; Associate Professor of Social Work

Christopher Murphy, Professor of Psychology

Jess Myers, Director, Women’s Center

Morgan Thomas ‘13, Assistant General Counsel

Aliya Webermann, Co-chair, Student Advisory Committee, and Clinical and Community Psychology Doctoral Student