Student Assembly - Resolution 26 (2026-2027)

Comprehensive Sexual Assault Prevention Training and Student Review of Curricula

• Term:
  2026-2027
• Assembly:
  Student Assembly
• Status: In Discussion
• Abstract: This resolution sets content and format requirements for sexual assault prevention training delivered to sorority and fraternity members and at New Student Orientation, assigns responsibility to the specific University offices that must carry the work, and creates a student review panel to approve curricula before delivery.

• See full resolution

  Whereas, Cornell’s own 2025 Survey of Sexual Assault and Related Misconduct (SARM) found that 35 percent of undergraduate women and 8 percent of undergraduate men reported experiencing sexual assault during their time at Cornell, compared to 23 percent of women and 9 percent of men in 2023, and that the reported rate among undergraduate women has equaled or exceeded 20 percent in every administration of the survey since 2015 [1],

  Whereas, the same survey found that 52 percent of Greek-affiliated undergraduate women reported experiencing sexual assault, compared to 29 percent of undergraduate women who are not Greek-affiliated [1],

  Whereas, the most common reported locations were residence halls at 29 percent, off-campus residences at 23 percent, and fraternity chapter houses at 17 percent, indicating that sexual assault at Cornell is a campus-wide problem that is more concentrated in some spaces than others [1],

  Whereas, the perpetrator was a fellow student in 86 percent of cases reported by women and 83 percent of cases reported by men, and alcohol was involved in the majority of incidents [1],

  Whereas, only 24 percent of women and 10 percent of men who experienced a sexual assault contacted any program or resource, with stated reasons including a belief that it would not help and a belief that nothing would be done, while 80 percent told a friend [1],

  Whereas, only about one quarter of students knew how to file a formal complaint or what happens after a complaint is filed, only about one third were aware of Cornell Victim Advocates, and just under half were aware of the SHARE website [1],

  Whereas, 42 percent of respondents reported receiving primarily or exclusively abstinence-only instruction about sex before arriving at Cornell, meaning the University cannot assume incoming students arrive with a working understanding of consent [1],

  Whereas, the 2025 undergraduate response rate was 13 percent, down from 34 percent in 2023, which limits the precision of these estimates and is itself a problem the University has been asked to address [1],

  Whereas, the Office of Sorority and Fraternity Life publishes a schedule of programs, including a Fall Semester Risk Prevention Training required of chapter leadership and advisors, a Hazing Prevention Course required before recruitment or intake, and a New Member Orientation, and no published material states whether any of these covers sexual assault prevention, how much time is devoted to it, what content it includes, who facilitates it, or whether member completion is tracked,

  Whereas, students report that the sessions currently delivered to chapters treat sexual assault prevention as one component of broader risk management and event compliance programming rather than as a subject addressed in its own right and in depth,

  Whereas, the President and Provost publicly endorsed the final report of the Presidential Task Force on Campus Sexual Assault in March 2026 and committed to implementing its recommendations, and the Chair of the Board of Trustees, the President, and the Provost restated that endorsement on September 29, 2026 [5][6],

  Whereas, those endorsed recommendations include required annual in-person training on consent and sexual citizenship for potential new members and active members of sororities and fraternities [1],

  Whereas, prevention programs that have been rigorously evaluated and shown to reduce risk are currently being offered only to volunteers in sororities and fraternities during the 2025-26 academic year, and the endorsed recommendations call for those pilots to be expanded following that year and incorporated into existing chapter requirements [1],

  Whereas, students who participated in Cornell’s focus groups reported that scenarios used in the existing Intervene program felt overly simplified relative to the situations students encounter, and asked for more content focused on sexual assault and sexual coercion [1],

  Whereas, the endorsed recommendations include a new, required, in-person session at New Student Orientation, facilitated by trained orientation leaders in groups of 30 students or fewer, and state that a one-time session is not sufficient and must be reinforced through the first semester [1],

  Whereas, New York Education Law § 6447 already requires every institution to adopt a comprehensive student onboarding and ongoing education campaign, and requires that each student leader and officer of a recognized or registered student organization complete training on sexual assault prevention prior to the organization receiving recognition or registration, while State guidance discourages reliance on online programs as the only component of onboarding training [2][3],

  Whereas, New York Education Law § 6442 already guarantees that a student who reports sexual assault in good faith, or who comes forward as a bystander, will not face code of conduct action for alcohol or drug violations occurring at or near the time of the incident, and a student who does not know of this protection before deciding whether to report cannot benefit from it [4],

  Whereas, students currently have no formal role in reviewing the content of the prevention training delivered to them, despite being the population the training is designed to reach,

  Whereas, the endorsed recommendations classify enhanced in-person programming for sororities and fraternities, and a Greek prevention strategy that moves beyond reducing risk, as medium-term items, defined in the report as between 18 months and four years, and mark both as not yet in progress [1],

  Whereas, those same recommendations set a short-term target of launching the in-person orientation session in fall 2026, and the University has since stated that in-person sexual health and well-being education is provided to all new students, without stating whether that programming is the session the report recommended, when it was delivered, in what format, to how many students, or with what evaluation results [7],

  Whereas, the University has formed an implementation committee, and while the report assigns each recommendation a short-term or medium-term designation, no status report, calendar date, or accountable office has been published for any individual recommendation, leaving students unable to determine what has been delivered and what has not,

  Be it therefore resolved, the Student Assembly calls on the University to maintain two distinct programs, one delivered to members of recognized sororities and fraternities and one delivered to all incoming undergraduate students during New Student Orientation, each designed for its own audience and setting, and each covering at minimum the following content:

  • Affirmative consent as defined under New York Education Law § 6441 [8] and Cornell Policy 6.4, taught through facilitated discussion, not through a lecture or an online module, including how consent is sought, how it is withdrawn, and how it operates when either party has been drinking;
  • Alcohol and other drugs, including how they affect the capacity to consent, how incapacitation is recognized in an actual social setting, and that under New York's affirmative consent standard a person who is incapacitated cannot give consent;
  • Situational practice through scenario-based exercises drawn from circumstances students encounter, including mixers, pre-games, walking home late at night, and situations in which the person at risk is a friend or a member of one’s own organization;
  • Bystander intervention, including what to do when intervening carries social cost within one’s own chapter or friend group;
  • Reporting pathways, including the difference between confidential and non-confidential resources, what the Title IX process involves, what happens after a report is filed, and the expected timeline for resolution;
  • Alcohol and drug amnesty under New York Education Law § 6442, stated plainly, so that students know before an incident occurs that reporting does not expose them to conduct charges for their own alcohol or drug use;
  • Supporting a survivor, including how to respond to a disclosure, what not to say, and how to connect someone to the SHARE Office and Victim Advocacy without taking the decision away from them; and
  • Accommodations and support available after an assault, including academic, housing, and no-contact measures,

  Be it further resolved, the Student Assembly calls on the University to deliver this training in person, in facilitated small groups of students, and not as an online module alone, consistent with New York State guidance, and further calls on the University to ensure that:

  • Sessions are built around facilitated discussion in which participants speak, ask questions, and work through disagreement;
  • Participants are walked through scenarios step by step and asked what they would do at each point, instead of watching a completed scenario and being told the correct answer;
  • Consent is addressed throughout every scenario discussed, and not defined once at the start of a session; and
  • Each session devotes meaningful time to what happens after an assault, including reporting, accommodations, confidential support, and how a student is supported in the months that follow, so that students know these options before they or a friend need them,

  Be it further resolved, with respect to sororities and fraternities, the Student Assembly calls on the University, through the Office of Sorority and Fraternity Life, to:

  • Publish, for the 2025-26 and 2026-27 academic years, what training each recognized chapter was required to complete, including frequency, duration, format, required attendees, facilitator qualifications, and whether completion was tracked, so that students and the Assembly can establish the current baseline;
  • Require in-person training at least once per semester for all members of recognized sororities and fraternities, delivered as a single curriculum to every member including those in chapter leadership;
  • Require that sexual assault prevention and support be delivered as its own session, with enough time to cover the content required by this resolution in depth, and not as a segment within general risk management, event management, alcohol compliance, or hazing prevention programming, with the sufficiency of that time assessed by the student review panel described below;
  • Require that sessions be led by facilitators trained in the specific program being delivered, and publish the qualifications a facilitator must hold;
  • Verify and publish whether every recognized chapter is in compliance with the training completion requirement for student leaders and officers under New York Education Law § 6447(6), which is a condition of recognition;
  • Tie chapter standing and recruitment eligibility to documented completion rates, and publish those rates on the Cornell Organization Scorecard;
  • Expand the rigorously evaluated prevention programs currently offered only to volunteers following the 2025-26 academic year, and incorporate them into chapter requirements for all members, consistent with the recommendations the University has endorsed; and
  • Revise the Intervene program with sorority and fraternity members participating in the design, adding scenarios focused on sexual assault and coercion that reflect the complexity students described to the task force,

  Be it further resolved, with respect to New Student Orientation, the Student Assembly calls on the University, through the Tatkon Center for New Students in collaboration with the Skorton Center for Health Initiatives and the Cornell Office of Civil Rights, to:

  • Deliver a required in-person session to every incoming undergraduate student, facilitated in small groups of students, covering the content above and designed for students who have not yet joined any campus organization, with attention to the residential settings where incoming students spend their first semester;
  • Provide at least two reinforcing touchpoints during the first semester, since the task force found that a single session is not sufficient;
  • Train the peer facilitators who lead these sessions and compensate them with pay or academic credit; and
  • Distribute the reporting and support decision tree, including the QR code recommended by the task force, at the time student identification cards are issued,

  Be it further resolved, responsibility for this work shall rest with the following offices, which shall coordinate with one another: the Skorton Center for Health Initiatives and the SHARE Office for curriculum development and survivor support; the Cornell Office of Civil Rights for content on reporting pathways and the Title IX process; the Office of Sorority and Fraternity Life for delivery to and compliance by recognized chapters; the Tatkon Center for New Students for orientation delivery; Cornell Health for clinical and counseling coordination; and the implementation committee for the Presidential Task Force on Campus Sexual Assault for oversight and public reporting,

  Be it further resolved, the content of all training described in this resolution shall be reviewed and approved before delivery by a student review panel composed of representatives designated by the Women’s Issues Representative of the Student Assembly, the Cornell Panhellenic Council, the Interfraternity Council, the Multicultural Greek and Fraternal Council, Planned Parenthood Generation Action at Cornell, and Sexual Assault Prevention and Support, with the SHARE Office and the Skorton Center for Health Initiatives serving as advisors, and the panel shall:

  • Review curricula, facilitator guides, and materials at least once per academic year and before any substantially revised curriculum is delivered;
  • Return written recommendations to the responsible office, which shall respond in writing to each recommendation it does not adopt; and
  • Report its assessment to the Student Assembly at the end of each academic year,

  Be it further resolved, the Student Assembly recommends that the measures described in this resolution be developed over the remainder of the fall 2026 semester and implemented or test run during the spring 2027 semester, with results reported to the Student Assembly before the end of that semester,

  Be it finally resolved, copies of this resolution shall be sent to the President of the University, the Provost, the Vice President for Student and Campus Life, the Dean of Students, the Presidential Task Force on Campus Sexual Assault, the Cornell Office of Civil Rights, the Office of Sorority and Fraternity Life, the Skorton Center for Health Initiatives and the SHARE Office, the Tatkon Center for New Students, Cornell Housing and Residential Life, Cornell Health, the Cornell Panhellenic Council, the Interfraternity Council, the Multicultural Greek and Fraternal Council, Planned Parenthood Generation Action at Cornell, Sexual Assault Prevention and Support, the University Assembly, and the Graduate and Professional Student Assembly.

  Respectfully Submitted,

  Saanya Agarwal ’27

  Women’s Issues Representative, Student Assembly

• Resolution File:
  SAR262026ComprehensiveSexualAssaultPreventionTrainingAndStudentReviewOfCurricula.docx (4.54 MB)
• Supporting Documents:
• Sponsors: Saanya Agarwal (sa2234)
• Reviewing Committee: