Vanderbilt Leads State In Reported Rapes, But Likely Because Of Campus Vigilance

New Tennessee crime stats reveal Vanderbilt University had far more reported cases of rape and sexual assault in 2014 than any other school in the state. Administrators believe awareness efforts have caused more victims to come forward in recent years.

Vanderbilt had 22 reported sexual offenses. No other campus was even close.

The much-larger University of Tennessee in Knoxville had just six. MTSU, with the state’s largest undergraduate enrollment, had two. Many smaller private universities had no reported sexual offenses in 2014.

“If you see a school that has a zero, that really should be the red flag right now, not a school that actually has numbers that at least in the short term will be going up,” Cara Tuttle Bell told WPLN. She directs Vanderbilt’s sexual assault program.

According to the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, reports of campus rape and sexual assault were
up 75 percent from 2013 and nearly double the number
from 2012. The TBI discourages drawing too many conclusions from its annual statistics by comparing one campus to another because of factors that vary from one school to the next.

Still, even Vanderbilt doesn’t dispute its numbers lead the state. There’s an impulse to want to see a zero,” Bell said.

“We do want the numbers of incidents to go down, but the numbers that show up in reports like these really should reflect the reality of what’s happening on our college campuses,” she said.

Vanderbilt had little choice but to ramp up sexual assault awareness following a high profile rape case involving former football players in a campus dorm room. Many other schools have followed suit, and it appears to show up in the latest stats.

Sewanee went from no reported sexual offenses in 2013 to eight last year.

“Like many other universities, Sewanee has increased education and emphasis to students about the importance of reporting any incidents,” spokesperson Laurie Saxton said in an email.

At Sewanee, all residence staff are now trained in how to help students report sexual assault. And starting this year, Saxton says campus police have access to an anonymous tip line that previously was only seen by the dean of students.

While it had no reported sexual assaults in 2014, Lipscomb
held a special assembly in February to unveil an anonymous tip line.

“Unfortunately, sexual harassment, assault and violence can be found in many places, even on Christian college campuses,” Lipscomb’s director of risk management Kathy Hargis said. “We can’t live in a bubble.”