CSUN’s Project D.A.T.E. announced its annual It’s On Us campaign. For the 2025 Wellness Week, several events were organized at the University Student Union (USU) starting on Monday, Oct. 20. On Wednesday, Oct. 22, they held the “What is Rape Culture” workshop, led by Bailey Wukmir.

Wukmir, the current program coordinator for Project D.A.T.E., started her work with the program in 2020 as a peer educator. Her job goes hand in hand with Strength United, with both programs being sponsored by University Counseling Services.

This year’s workshop was an introduction to what rape culture is, covering different topics surrounding sexual assault that have existed in society for generations. Wukmir used real-life examples from the media with celebrities, including the 2022 Depp v. Heard case.

Wukmir shared how the workshop was an incredibly important topic to cover, especially on a college campus. The goal was to make students aware of how certain issues like date rape are very real and, most importantly, preventable.

“That’s my whole goal is to bring around change and bring this out to the community, the CSUN campus, right? The students,” Wukmir said.

Project D.A.T.E. has seen its fair share of events throughout the year, not only during its campaign. According to its coordinator, it works to create connections with faculty, staff and students to spread awareness of sexual assault on campus and how to prevent it.

Among their usual outreach is tabling, talks, support groups, peer counseling and Campus Care Advocates, which is a part of Strength United and provides a safe space on campus for survivors of sexual assault, interpersonal abuse, harassment and stalking.

“There can be change,” Wukmir said. “That we can prevent sexual assault and rape from happening. That the students here on campus can be the cog in the machine that changes things and can help end it ultimately. And I hope I educated them – introduce them that it’s a real existing thing and that we can end it.”

Wukmir covered topics like victim blaming and how it is a snowball effect when it comes to spreading the word about how to prevent situations like date rape.

During the second part of the workshop, which included how to prevent these issues, students and attendees offered their own suggestions. Some included expanding on events like the workshop, organizing bigger meetings and talks on campus to make students aware that this is a real situation.

Students said they felt more could have been done following the recent sexual assault at CSUN Orange Grove in September. They felt they didn’t get the proper information on how to prevent another incident.

“All we got was a voicemail about the situation,” one student, who preferred to remain anonymous, said. “And then at the end, it said if you’re in this situation, make sure to go to a safe area with the blue signs. But okay, that didn’t go over anything but besides run to a blue pole. Not a lot of people even know what those blue signs are.”

Peer Educator Jay Guillen has been in her position for two years and became treasurer for the program at the start of the semester. Assisting Wukmir, she expressed how, despite this being a very introductory session with basic terms, the program acknowledges how sexual assault is not only an issue for women or heterosexual couples, but that it can happen to anyone.

According to Guillen, instead of having this workshop seem like mandatory training when starting a new job, the hope was to make it more engaging for students.

“I hope they take this kind of in the back of their mind that this can be something that can be discussed in college campuses despite the triggering and sensitive nature of it,” she said. “And that there’s a program that’s literally completely about that and how we can educate ourselves and other campuses.”

Among the attendees was Maggie Arce, a senior studying child and adolescent development. Arce hopes to use her newfound knowledge from the event in her future in social work with children and with her own daughter. She was especially interested in how even Disney princess movies can influence these topics, especially in young children.

“Children are still seeing these things, like, these are classics,” Arce said. “So, how as an educator or someone who is working with children, how can I come in and go away from the gender norms or what is perceived as normal or as rape culture? It still blows my mind to see how common it is. People are just not sensitive to it anymore. You have the knowledge of it, but you don’t really pay attention to it until it happens.”

For more information on Project D.A.T.E. and any adjacent resources or upcoming events, students can visit their Instagram or the official CSUN website.