PSYC Senior Helps Organize First-Ever 'Catcalls of College Park' Event
Lily Meeks, PSA co-events chair, received and chalked the anonymous submissions
A few weeks ago you might have seen some shocking phrases scrawled in chalk across the McKeldin Mall. With good reason, Lily Meeks, a senior psychology major, is partially responsible for that.
Meeks is co-events chair of the student-run Preventing Sexual Assault (PSA) group, which strives to raise awareness of the prevalence of sexual assault on campus, support survivors, and be “the voice for students in all matters related to Title IX and power based violence.” The group primarily does so through a series of annual events like Occupy McKeldin, which took place virtually this spring and featured a speaker, Catcalls of NYC’s Sophie Sandberg, that gave the PSA team an idea for a new initiative.
“She came and talked to us about what they do, which is general submissions every week, and they have a whole team of people who chalk the catcall where it occurred,” said Meeks. “We thought that was a little bit too broad of a scope for us—we don’t have people who can go chalk all the time—so we created a single, similar event where we could still incorporate catcalls [that happen at] UMD.”
That event was dubbed the "Catcalls of College Park" initiative, and it's goal was to raise awareness about the prevalence of sexual harassment and assault on campus. In helping create it, Meeks and co-events chair Amanda Sherman, a junior marketing and international business major, sent out a Google form through Instagram, GroupMes and other club listservs; combed through 60-70 submissions of anonymous catcalls and experiences of sexual assault; and selected a handful of censored submissions to chalk the night of Tuesday, Oct. 19 because they wouldn’t be able to issue a “trigger warning” to McKeldin passersby.
“We didn’t ask for a specific location but a lot of time in people’s testimonials they were like ‘I was walking on Route 1,’ and so we tried to take those elements from people’s stories and incorporate those into the quotes because we really wanted people who are reading these quotes to understand that this stuff is happening really close to us,” explained Meeks. “We also thought putting all of the quotes in one place would really help raise awareness because if you just saw a quote here or there you might not create the connection.”
The initiative caught the attention of many at the university and beyond, evidenced by coverage in The Diamondback and The Lily, a publication of The Washington Post.
“It was a really great starting point for that week because we had our SlutWalk event that following Friday, and we had a great turnout, probably around 100 people,” said Meeks of PSA's other annual event, which is designed to uplift and support survivors. “A lot of times victims or people frustrated by the system have no outlet, and we try to create a space for people to do that.”
On Nov. 10 from 6:30-8:30 p.m., PSA will host another safe-space opportunity for people to come together and discuss sexual assault, but this time in a more casual environment: Cornerstone Grill & Loft.
Even after Meeks’ spring 2022 graduation, though, she doesn’t expect to stop facilitating such conversations. Meeks intends to apply to the Department of Psychology’s Master’s in Industrial Organizational Psychology program and carry some of the things she learned during her time with PSA into the workplace.
“My ideal situation after graduate school would be to work in an organization to help cultivate organizational climates where sexual assault is not socially acceptable, since so often right now companies might have initiatives to prevent workplace sexual harassment or assault, but it still occurs,” said Meeks. “My work with PSA will hopefully help translate to an organizational setting where there often are a lot of similarities to what’s happening on campus.”
Photo courtesy of Lily Meeks.
Published on Tue, Nov 2, 2021 - 9:51AM