Get Sexy, Get Consent, an interactive performance promoting consent in sexual activities, received the Grand Silver Excellence Award from NASPA this month.
The performance is a part of Voices Against Violence’s Theater for Dialogue, which “uses applied theatre and performance to initiate conversations about relationships, consent, boundaries, and signs of power and control,” according to the CMHC website. The program is facilitated by students and is available by requests from classrooms, organizations and campus groups.
NASPA, an association that supports the student affairs profession, awards outstanding student affairs programs during an annual conference. On March 14, Get Sexy, Get Consent won a Gold Excellence Award in a category focused on violence prevention and safety. The gold winners from each category were further judged for the designations of Grand Gold, Grand Silver and Grand Bronze.
“The Get Sexy, Get Consent program at UT addresses a strong student need in an innovative way,” said Carolyn Golz, co-chair of the Excellence Awards, in an email. “The unique blend of theory around the actor as a facilitator of dialogue and collaboration with theater-trained staff makes Get Sexy, Get Consent stand out as an innovative, exceptional program.”
Get Sexy, Get Consent is part of Voices Against Violence, a program of UT’s Counseling and Mental Health Center.
Katy Redd, CMHC’s associate director for prevention and outreach, said they submitted an entry for the award because the program easily meets the criteria NASPA was looking for.
“The idea of using interactive theater … and student-actor facilitators is innovative,” Redd said. “This is not staff or faculty standing up and saying you should do this, but it’s students talking with other students…. This is a very upstream, or primary, prevention, because most sexual assault occurs between people who know each other.”
Jaelynn Blount, one of the actresses for Get Sexy, Get Consent, said the program deserved the award because the team uses student feedback to improve the show and tailor it to students’ needs.
“We dive into every little aspect just to make it a little more perfect,” said Blount, a theater and dance sophomore. “When we come out of each show, we make sure to analyze each show and make sure that we get the right amount of feedback from each student.”
Feedback was collected through surveys conducted at the end of every performance and follow-up surveys three to six months after the program to assess participants’ behavior change, Redd said.
