On the evening of April 11, the Director of the District of Columbia’s Office of Victim Services and Justice Grants, Michelle Garcia, came to campus to give a presentation on the complicated topic of romance and stalking. Many different UW-La Crosse organizations were apart of making this event possible, with organizations such as: the UW-L Women’s Student Association, the Women’s Gender and Sexuality Studies Department, the UW-L Violence Prevention Office, the Office of Residence Life and New Horizons all sponsoring the presentation.

Garcia has published numerous articles on stalking, and has worked with various movements that have been driven to end stalking, sexual assault and domestic violence all over the world.

The presentation covered stalking in various different methods opening student’s eyes to the topic of stalking in a different light. UW-L student Carly Juzwik spoke about the presentation and said, “My big takeaway from this event would be to take stalking more seriously.” Juzwik continued by saying, “It taught me to think of it in a different lens, not so much as a romantic gesture, but something that we should take more cautiously and be more aware of.”

Throughout the course of the presentation, Garcia stressed the difficulties in recognizing stalking. Garcia defined stalking as, “A course of conduct directed at a specific person that would cause a reasonable person to either fear for his/her safety; or suffer substantial emotional distress.” Garcia went on to elaborate that fear is subjective and that what one may fear, others may think is harmless.

Audience members learned the importance of context in situations of stalking. Garcia utilized an analogy of a person calling 911, reporting that someone left a bouquet of roses at their doorstep. At first glance the dispatcher would disregard this call as a harmless act. Garcia continued the analogy, saying if the dispatcher attempted to learn the context behind the call they would discover that the caller’s stalker told her that the day she would die is the day she finds a bouquet of roses at her door.

UW-L’s own Violence Prevention Specialist Ingrid Peterson attended the event and appreciated Garcia’s emphasis on the context.  “A lot of things contribute to not taking (stalking) as serious as we might,” Peterson said, “we assume that there is other stuff going on there and we don’t really look at that context piece that she talked about, I think that is a very important piece.”

Garcia sprinkled in lighthearted memes and videos, broke the students into groups, and frequently referenced UW-L’s own sexual misconduct rules to add to the students understanding of stalking as a serious issue. UW-L student Libby Smith commented on her highlight of the presentation, “I liked the application to our campus,” Smith said, “A lot of times you go to these events and they are very theoretical… This was very specific to La Crosse, it showed a lot of opportunities and resources.”

For more information on stalking visit www.victimsofcrime.org/src. If you or anyone you know is a victim of stalking or domestic violence call the victim connect resource center confidentially at 855-4-VICTIM, the national dating abuse helpline at 1-866-331-9474 or text loveis to 22522.