Friday, January 13, 2006
RFW speaker brought date rape to national attention
 At age 18, after being raped on a date with a fellow student at the College of William and Mary, Katie Koestner spoke out nationally and publicly, breaking a long national silence on the most under-reported crime in America. She appeared on the cover of TIME magazine’s date rape issue, giving a name and a face to a crime that is recognized as a critical problem currently facing America’s students.Koestner will present her program on sexual assault, “No-Yes,” at 7 p.m. Tuesday, January 24, in Carter Hall in the University Center. The program is sponsored by the Department of Recreation, Fitness, and Wellness, and is open to the public. Stephanie Walden-Schwake, assistant director of Recreation, Fitness, and Wellness, said, “We know that sexual assault is a risk for students, and we want to educate both men and women on how to prevent it, and where they can go for help. “Katie seems very enthusiastic about telling her story, and helping other students.” About Katie Koestner Koestner’s assault, quickly followed by the William Kennedy Smith and Mike Tyson cases, helped bring the contemporary debate over date rape into the national spotlight. She has appeared on Oprah, Good Morning America, NBC Nightly News, CNN, MTV, Larry King Live, CNBC Talk Live, MSNBC, Later Today, Entertainment Tonight, Italian TV and dozens of other news programs in order to create public awareness of date rape. Articles about Koestner have been published in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Tribune, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Chicago Sun-Times, The Journal of Higher Education, and hundreds of other publications. HBO chose Koestner as the subject of its Lifestories Docudrama, “No Visible Bruises: The Katie Koestner Story.” In 2002, she worked with MIT to create “LifeLessons: Sexual Assault 101," an interactive CD ROM for high school and college students. In 2003, she completed two films with national award-winning Top Hat Productions: “Please Write Back: Sexual Assault among America’s Students” and “Helping a Sexual Assault Survivor.” Koestner earned degrees in public policy and women’s studies, Magna Cum Laude and Phi Beta Kappa, from the College of William and Mary. Since graduation, she has presented in front of hundreds of thousands of students for over a thousand different colleges, high schools, military institutions, youth groups and service organizations throughout North America. Her annual clients include MIT, West Point, the US Naval Academy, Amherst College, Williams College and The Lawrenceville School, among many other universities and high schools. She is a trained sexual assault peer counselor. At Cornell University, she founded Students Helping Others to Understand Trauma (SHOUT). Koestner is co-author of two books: Sexual Assault on Campus: What Every College Needs to Know about Protecting Victims, Providing for Just Adjudication, and Complying with Federal Laws and Total Sexual Assault Risk Management Strategies for Colleges. She also contributed to Just Sex, an anthology on the history of the anti-sexual violence movement. Since founding Campus Outreach Services, Inc., she has dedicated the organization to fighting sexual assault in every possible way. She has taken her efforts to one more level in 2001 with the creation of TKKI: The Katie Koestner Initiative for a World Without Rape, a national charity involved with raising funds for Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner Programs, Physical Evidence Recovery Kits, and other projects designed to achieve a world without rape. The most significant development for TKKI has been the formation and spread of The I(nitiative) Club, a national high school peer education program on respectful relationships. |
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