Michael Dunn and Helen Ann Lawless from SMCM’s Office of Title IX Compliance and Training recently finalized a Memorandum of Understanding to collaborate with Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. The new initiative aims to conduct evaluation research on ‘Hot Spot Mapping’ as an environmental change strategy for sexual violence prevention on college and university campuses. The three-year project is titled: Creating Protective Higher Education Environments for Sexual Violence Prevention: Practice-based Evidence and Evaluation.

The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health will lead the initiative, with support from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and several college and university partners. Goals of the project include:

• Development of campus- and program-specific logic models, outlining the inputs, activities, process measures, and outputs of a Hot Spot Mapping intervention to reduce sexual violence
• Identification of existing survey instruments and evaluation data sources, and conceptualization of new data sources to meet evaluation goals
• Identification of students and additional stakeholders for further discussion and activities related to logic model development
• Identification of a diverse set of appropriate initiatives to respond to Hot Spot Mapping findings in order to reduce sexual violence
• Review and advise on the resulting practice-based monitoring and evaluation guide for campus-based Hot Spot Mapping, as well as related dissemination of project outputs

Subsequent project phases may include:

• Testing of new measures and evaluation procedures, and
• Pilot hot spot mapping evaluation

The SMCM Title IX Office has already begun work on the initiative and will receive $15,000 during the three-year project to compensate for the time involved in attending meetings, reviewing documents and coordinating stakeholders for meeting participation.