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Student
Dani Howell
GSW 1110
22 September 2014
Rape Kits in Bowling Green
Sexual assaults happen in most colleges over the nation, yet if a student wants an SANE
exam done in Bowling Green one would have to go off campus to the hospital. Students need to
report assaults and be seen by a nurse who does a rape kit examination, called a Sexual Assault
Nurse Examiner (King) to insure students mental and physical health is stable, reporting these
event also help reduce the threat of it happening again. Students health is being compromised
because the Hospital and school officials see having these kits as an unnecessary expense on
campus. Students need to get help after being assaulted and the university should put forward an
effort to get those students who need help. I feel this is not a good policy to have given the
concern for the immediate medical and psychological needs. It is also concerning that students
need to travel to a larger facility when they potentially have the opportunity to receive medical
attention in a less intimidating environment closer to their home on campus. With the new
changes placed on student victims, our campus is likely to see an increase in crime due to under
reporting.
The hardest part about the Falcon Health Center not having rape kits is the distance
students have to go to get one done. For more than 20 years, students were able to walk over to
the previous University health center on Ridge Street, report a sexual assault (King), now
students do not have the accessibility of getting an exam done. In Bowling Green the Hospital is

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about 1.3 miles from the Falcon Health Center. It is a three-minute drive or approximately a 26minute walk (King). Most students on campus do not have a car and must walk everywhere, if
the victims who must walk have an injury due to the assault it could take an hour or longer for
the victim to make it to the hospital while the health center is just a crossed the street. If students
cannot easily get to a facility to have an exam done they are far less likely to have the exam
done.
Sexual assaults happen to more students than people would think. Female students at any
university have reported 1 in 5 are assaulted at any point in their college life (King). It is not
reported how many male students are assaulted but the number of women equal out to about
1,629 out of 8,147 (King). These numbers represent the average female students, the numbers
of students who have reported at BG have not been as high but is still way more than there
should be which is zero. Since 2010, there have been 41 forced sex offenses reported on
campus, according to University Chief of Police Monica Moll and the 2013 Campus Security
and Fire Safety Report (King). Sexual assault happens to a lot of students in the country and
even thought the numbers in Bowling Green are under 100, more students would be likely to
report if they were educated about services offered making it more needed on campus.
The average student who comes to BGSU are between the ages of 17 and 22, most
students around these ages are very intimidated to go to the hospital especially when it is the first
time without their parents. "There may be a certain level of comfort to reporting rape or sexual
assault and getting examined by a SANE at a University Health Center (King). Nurses in
hospitals see college students as children or adults without giving sympathy unlike nurses on
campus who see students as what they are both child and adult. SANEs on-campus also have

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experience that come with being on campus every day, knowing available research resources and
understanding students (King)".
Sexual assault exams are not offered at the Falcon Health Center because some of the
university officials and staff feel it is not necessary for the service to be offered to students. The
"Falcon Health Center is owned by the Wood County Hospital that offers the same service"
(King), so the staff believes the service it is not needed at the center. The Health Center also
finds it hard to provide the service when they have calculated most "students want to report an
exam early before the center opens or after it closes" (King). "Students often would come in
multiple days after the incident has happened" (King) making it harder to collect the full kit
which takes up the time and space of the center to be used for the exam which takes a long time
to do in itself.
Sexual assault exams do take a while to do, Hiser talks to them for 20 minutes, gathering
verbal information. During a rape kit exam, evidence is collected to be used in possible future
legal proceedings. Victims are usually given a pelvic exam, photographs are taken of their body
and an X-ray may be involved if the assault was violent (King). Even though the processes is
long, it would take the same amount of time in the Emergency Department where the room used
can be save for patients who are in an emergency by preforming the service at the Falcon Heath
Center. The center at the time was worried about student wanting to report at night when the
center closed at 5:30pm but the center is now opened until 9pm on Monday through Friday.
Due to the long walk, the intimidation level of the hospital and the high number of
students who get assaulted, the Falcon Health Center should offer sexual assault exams. Students
must now walk almost a half hour just to get to the hospital from the campus. 1 in 5 females
students are sexually assaulted during there 4 years I'm college. The hospital is very intimidating

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for students especially for those who are going for the first time by themselves. Most students
come to get exams done when the Falcon Center is closed. By offering hours through the week
until 9 more students are able to get checked out.

There are still a few words that do not need to be capitalized, so keep an eye out
for that. Good job incorporating sources! Make sure that all of your topic
sentences and body paragraphs relate directly back to your thesis. This will be
easier to do if you clearly set out your point in the thesis. The thesis is almost
there, it just needs a bit more work. The conclusion also needs a bit more
development, and I listed some ideas of how to do this in the margins. I also
marked a few examples of issues with grammar and word choice that are present,
so watch out for those. Due to these issues, I have to give you an AP for this
paper.

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Work cited

King, Danae. "Rape Kit Exams Not Available on Campus." The BG News. BLOX
Content Management System, 20 Apr. 2014. Web. 03 Sept. 2014.