HBCUs: Tips for Applying for and Using OVW Grant Awards

Minh Ha:

Hi, welcome to Patchwork, the podcast from the Office on Violence Against Women at the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington. I'm Minh Ha from OVW and today, we have two special guests with us to talk to us about a grant they received through OVW’s Campus Program. Dorian Johnson, Spelman College’s then-project director, joins Patchwork to share how the funding impacted the college, some culturally specific strategies that Spelman used in the response and prevention of campus sexual assault, and the outcomes of their efforts. Jessica Neal is a program specialist from OVW’s Campus unit, and she manages grants just like Spelman’s. She’s been managing grants for the Campus Program for the past two years. Thanks for joining us, Dorian. Why don’t you take it away, Jessica?

Jessica Neal:

On behalf of the OVW Campus Program, I just wanted to thank you for your time and your effort to go on this podcast, and also to thank you again for your time and your effort as a previous project director with Spelman.

Dorian Johnson:

Well, I just wanted to say thank you all so much for having me. It’s such an honor. I’m happy to have served as a former project director and even have worked with OVW in previous institutions and so I know the amazing work and efforts that this grant brings on to institutions. So, thank you so much for having me.

Jessica Neal:

All right. So, tell me about the need for the grant as previous project director with Spelman; tell me why did the institution decide to apply for OVW funding.

Dorian Johnson:

Yes. So, during the time there were some instances, a lot of social media instances that were brought to the president’s attention. At that time the president said, “Hey, let’s rearrange some things, let’s take a look at what’s going on.” And specifically, a lot of the change happened within the Title 9 office during that time. So, something that came up was, “Oh, there’s this grant and this is what it offers institutions, and this is how it can be beneficial for Spelman. So, we applied for the grant and that’s how it came about. But really it came about from the need for us to serve our students better and the grant provided an opportunity for us to do just that. And what was really important at the time was that the president was super on board with and, you know, was the main benefactor in us acquiring the OVW grant.

Jessica Neal:

Perfect. So, it sounds like you had leadership buy-in when applying for OVW funding, which is a great thing. We always like to hear our grantees tell us that they have leadership buy-in. So, what has been one of the biggest surprises in working and executing the grant as a previous project director with Spelman?

Dorian Johnson:

I would say campus and community buy-in. a lot of times with this work, you know, it can feel siloed because, people don’t understand it, or it’s just a subject area that folks don’t like to touch because it’s uncomfortable.

Jessica Neal:

Absolutely.

Dorian Johnson:

So with that being said, it’s kind of hard to get buy-in, especially from the campus community or even the outside community that we work with, some of our external stakeholders. So, I think that the campus buy-in had a lot to do with our president signing off and really pouring into the grant and the initial phases. That has been one of the huge successes and even with faculty members being on CCRT and wanting to know more. I would say at Spelman compared to my previous institutions with the grant, we did a lot of “Don’t cancel class,” kind of trainings and different things like that. Just to have those professors to reach out and say, “Hey, I want you to come talk about this or come do a bystander intervention training or what have you was really such a success.

Jessica Neal:

Absolutely. And it sounds like you had great engagement from faculty and staff as far as the grant was concerned, so that’s the great thing there. As an HBCU, what culturally specific strategies did Spelman employ in prevention and response? Can you tell me a little about that?

Dorian Johnson:

Yeah. I think when it came to culturally specific strategies for our campus, and you know, I guess, I don’t want to speak across the board for HBCUs but I pretty much would say that this would be a theme, but one of the things is to form relationships. We know in that particular community that you can’t just go in and ask anyone for anything to ask students to participate. You have to build that rapport. There has to be some form of trust there for a student to open up and to want to come or listen or even to report different things that are happening on campus. So that was one of them. We like to always make our efforts and even when it comes to education response or whatever we were doing, contextual. It’s like, how does what you’re teaching me or what you’re telling me about how this came about years ago relate to a current student. What does that look like to them in this day and age so they can say, “Oh, this is why this is important.” Incorporating pop culture, whether that’s response or education. Make it so whether you connect movies, music, and other media that students are interested in and bringing a context with the work that we’re doing. So that’s one of the things that we did. If I had to say a last one, our students are really big on political and social issues, so we were able to rally them up when it came to things like that, or we gave them a voice to do so themselves.

Jessica Neal:

Absolutely. That’s great to hear. And for one, with the social media, which our campus community is really engaged in social media outlets and platforms in addition to the music that they listen to, so that is also a great way to actually build that rapport, is to being engaged in what they listen to, what they read about, what they talk about within a campus community to actually build that relationship with them. As a result of the OVW Campus funding that Spelman had, what impact have you seen on the campus when you were there, especially the behavior changes or systemic changes within the campus system as it relates to the funding that was provided?

Dorian Johnson:

Oh, goodness. Lots of reporting, right? And even if students didn’t quite understand who to go to or what the reporting processes looked like even if they heard it a million times, they knew who to ask, to say, “What’s going on with this,” or “What’s going on with that.” I did love that the faculty and staff were even onboard when it came to reporting. It’s interesting because with facility and staff, you have to pour into that confidence that they are able to handle a crisis situation and be trauma informed when a student comes to them. So often times there were a lot of faculty and staff that would push it off or try to push things off to myself or push things off to Title 9, so we would help them build their confidence so they could say, “OK, I can handle this. These are the on-campus resources that we have, and these are the off-campus resources that are free to students that they can use.” Just building that confidence. But being able to see that kind of success in techniques was really important for us.

Jessica Neal:

That’s great. Having that confidence within faculty and staff itself is a great thing to have, especially when there is a student coming to report an incident to them, so they know where to get that help from

Dorian Johnson:

Absolutely.

Jessica Neal:

Now let me ask you this also, Dorian, what training has Spelman conducted using campus program funding that may have been a success on the campus?

Dorian Johnson:

I know one of the trainings that was a huge success was the neural biology of trauma training. And that training was so amazing because it was put on by one of our community partners, Partnership Against Domestic Violence (PADV) in the Atlanta area. It just so happened that one of their staff members at the time had a wealth of knowledge on neural biology and had studied that, and she came on board and was able to just really deep dive and that training because you have the basic trauma-informed training and you kind of hit on the topics neural biology when it comes to the flight, fight, and freeze, but she really did a deep dive in there and it was absolutely phenomenal. It definitely opened all of our eyes on just how to better serve others with a trauma-informed (unintelligible) and what that actually means. Trauma affects the brain, but what does that look like? What does that mean specially to an HBCU culture? So, that was a phenomenal one. Another one we had that was really good was from one of our TA providers, Ujima, and one of their staff members provided a Black LGBTQIA survivor and was called Community Response and Approaches, and it was a lunch and learn. That one had mainly faculty and staff attendance. So much was brought to the forefront in how do we respond? What do we do? What are our approaches? I really loved and enjoyed that training because there were different organizational structures within the campus community that were there. You had housing, and you had some student affairs folks, and you had some campus safety folks. So, what the staff member did was ask, “What do you do when this happens?” or “What do you do when that happens?” So, while it being a lunch and learn, to was kind of a hands-on kind of training because she was able to take time and really kind of dissect how our, when it comes to policies and procedures and say, “Hey, let’s try to employ this,” or be more culturally specific when speaking to LGBTQAI identities. That was another one. So, our community partners and our TA providers really had our backs and did some amazing trainings that I think were the most successful.

Jessica Neal:

Great, and you actually put us into the segue of TA providers that you had with them. Ujima is actually one of our amazing HCBU training providers that we have, and they do great work on behalf of OVW and provide that technical assistance and expertise to our grantees. So, speaking of Ujima and technical assistance support, in what ways, Dorian, was the OVW grant guidance and TA expertise beneficial and helpful in ways to implement the project activities themselves?

Dorian Johnson:

I think specifically that because our TA provider was for all the HBCUs. Having that cohort is valuable because you can see what other HBCUs are doing. The HBCU community in education is a small, close-knit community and it allowed some kind of crosswork to happen. I remember doing some training for (unintelligible) and trying to collaborate on things. But kind of them being the glue was beneficial. The fact that TA was there when it came to any kind of subject area that we needed to focus on within the grant, anything we needed, you could call on TA if you needed more information or if you needed a simple question answered or assistance. I think the TA that OVW employs is just really, really, solid.

Jessica Neal:

Thank you so much, and that is definitely great feedback to hear about our TA providers that we have. Some grantees feel that they have to pay for technical assistance and expertise they are receiving from our TA providers, and that isn’t the case. Our TA that we provide is free for all of our grantees, as you know. So, we want to make sure that all of our grantees know and utilize the assistance that we have. And they can provide valuable expertise within the field. Speaking of other TA support, Dorian, as a previous grantee, can you provide type of feedback regarding the support of OVW and our Campus TA providers that will aid us in improving assistance to other campuses?

Dorian Johnson:

Let’s see. I think what’s done is done very well. I think the fact that you’re even asking that question or that OVW and the TAs ask about feedback and what can be done better and what’s needed shows the quality of care that you give to the institutions. So, I think everything that’s being done is being done well. I like, and I think you should continue that there is a specific HBCU cohort and to continue to make sure that it lives up to what it needs to, because I think that with that, other HBCUs will feel comfortable in acquiring the grant and applying for the grant and knowing that they have the support once they get the grant.

Jessica Neal:

Absolutely. Clearly, you are taking us into another segue. I don’t know if you have psychic mind or not, Dorian, but you’re amazing! Speaking of other HBCUs, if you have an opportunity to encourage other HBCUs to apply for funding, what advice would you give them?

Dorian Johnson:

Well, first, if I could be candid, I would tell other HBCUs to let’s not ignore the issue, because it is an issue. It’s an issue on every single campus, but it is an issue. Sometimes in our communities we like to sweep things under the rug. We don’t like to face the facts of what’s happening right in front of our faces. And so, I would really encourage other HBCUs to just say, “Hey this is a problem, it’s happening on our campus, but there’s a solution to this problem.” This is a problem that there can be a solution. We can try to eradicate. We can have efforts to do better, to support our students within the community and within the campus community. This is an issue that’s alive and well, but it doesn’t have to be an issue that’s ignored.

Jessica Neal:

So, outside of that, Dorian, what role can HBCUs play in supporting Black survivors of our crimes?

Dorian Johnson:

Believe survivors. Believe your students and if students are coming to you with an issue, whether it be through protesting, whether it be through social media campaigns, take time out and hear what’s happening. Hear how you can be of assistance and you want to have the students’ best interests at heart. Sometimes in higher education, it is a business. Higher education is a business, but we sometimes drop the ball when it comes to looking at the student wholistically, and attending to them wholistically, so once they are out of the institution and have graduated, they can go on to be even more productive students in our society. “I paid all of this money and got these degrees, but I also had a part of me that was tended to, that often, when it comes to a business structure, it isn’t.” I think that’s an important aspect of it, into how we can support and have even more institutions on board with this work.

Jessica Neal:

And you said the key word is to believe, Dorian. Believe our survivors. That is critical in our community and particularly in the HBCU community, it’s often times where students of Color are overlooked, often times our Brown and Black students are not believed. Folks don’t want to listen to what they have to say, and that’s a big part in making sure that our survivors are receiving the adequate care and attention to the crimes that we are combatting. It starts with believing when a survivor comes to you to actually report that a crime has occurred on campus.

Dorian Johnson

Absolutely, that’s right. I think that if we stick with that in the forefront of our mind – if we start with that, right? Because everyone has so many questions when we go into this work. But if we just start with believing, then I think everything else just kind of falls into place, and that’s the first step into support and being there and responding appropriately to our students.

Jessica Neal:

Absolutely. This has been a great podcast. You were amazing. Again, thank you for taking the time to meet with us today to discuss HBCU culture within the HBCU community

Dorian Johnson

Thank you so much

Minh Ha:

And thank you for listening to Patchwork. We appreciate any comments you might have to share about this or any of our episodes. Feel free to send them to patchwork@usdoj.gov. Thanks for listening.