Take the Lead: How Senior Administrators Can Take Concrete Action During Consent Awareness Week
The Red Zone. It may not be a term that is recognized immediately by those working in post-secondary education but what happens during it, certainly is. It is the first six weeks of the academic year - from orientation to Halloween - when students, particularly first year students, face increased risks of sexual violence on campuses. Peer leaders, frontline student affairs and sexual violence support staff, and senior administrators are beginning to understand the factors that make this a vulnerable time for students.
To help make campus and school communities safer, Consent Awareness Week was launched in 2022. It runs every third week of September; this intentionally happens during the Red Zone so that consent education and action can have a stronger impact.
This year, from September 15 to 19, 2025, the Courage to Act Foundation is helping to amplify Consent Awareness Week as part of our ongoing work to create learning spaces that are free from harm. We believe senior administrative leaders have a particularly important role to play as it relates to setting up the foundations for safe and positive experiential learning opportunities.
What are our top three recommendations for action you can take?
As you and your teams engage in policy development and review this year, keep in mind the following recommendations from the Possibility Seeds policy toolkit:
Ensure experiential learning contexts are clearly included in the scope of institutional sexual violence and other relevant policies.
Ensure institutional experiential learning policies clearly articulate how sexual harassment and/or violence will be addressed by the institution.
Develop a specific protocol for how the institution will respond to sexual harassment and/or violence in experiential learning.
If your institution’s policy review cycle does not include any related to experiential learning and/or sexual violence for this academic year, consider your participation on panels or sponsoring an event where this is the focus of discussion and action to keep the conversation going.
Suggested Citation
Courage to Act Foundation. (2025). Take the Lead: How Senior Administrators Can Take Concrete Action During Consent Awareness Week. https://www.couragetoact.ca/blog/take-the-lead-how-senior-administrators-can-take-concrete-action-during-consent-awareness-week
