Students, faculty and other members of the community celebrated the official opening of the Brandeis Rape Crisis Center (RCC) in Usdan on Wednesday, March 4. The RCC will now serve as a safe space and service for survivors of sexual violence on campus, as well as a hub for programs to combat it. The center, located next to the Gender and Sexuality Center and the Office of Prevention Services, was first proposed last year by members of Brandeis Students Against Sexual Violence (B.SASV), as a response to what activists saw as a lack of appropriate action by the Brandeis administration.
“Our ultimate goal, of course, is to put ourselves out of business,” Sexual Assault Services and Prevention Specialist Sheila McMahon told the crowd. “It is a powerful moment to be able to come together with gratitude for the work that’s been done by so many in our community to make this possible.” 
McMahon also thanked Ava Bluestein ’15, Victoria Jonas ’15 and Sam Daniels ’16, the B.SASV members who worked closest with the administration over the past year. They are also serving as the RCC’s first student coordinators. There was a palpable feeling of emotion in the air as guests talked and embraced, some crying as they took a tour of the the set of furnished rooms the Center occupies. “[I feel] a mixture of gratitude, relief and frustration [the Center] did not open faster,” Senior Vice President for Students and Enrollment Andrew Flagel told The Brandeis Hoot at the event. “I hope that every student always feels that they have a place they can go.” 
For students, the opening was a relief after years of work. “As an activist who has been working on this, it felt like there was a gap for a long time and a lack of a set safe space,” Blustein said. “It’s great to know that even though I’m graduating, this will continue and be a real, functioning place.” The Center’s student coordinators will also be working on programs with various departments, including a screening co-sponsored with Brandeis’ film program to spread awareness about the Center and its services, according to Blustein. The RCC will soon finish hiring Brandeis students as peer advocates. These students will help the Center operate its services. 
Moving forward, a campuswide task force is currently looking at reports and suggestions by B.SASV and others to implement in the ongoing fight against sexual assault on campus, according to McMahon. “We have education and training programs, but having a real coordinated and comprehensive program is a goal,” McMahon said. “Our campus climate [safety] survey is also going out in [the end of March], and that will be hugely helpful.” 
McMahon will be one of the primary professional staffers at the Crisis Center, along with the Psychological Counseling Center’s Kristin Huang, interim Prevention Specialist Rani Neutill and newly-hired Title IX Coordinator Rebecca Tiller. For now, their main concern is to make the existence of the RCC, one of the few independent on-campus centers in the United States, known to students and keep working toward putting itself out of business.
