Welcome
Dr. Merryl H. Tisch, Chairman of The State University of New York Board of Trustees

Introductions
Mr. Joseph Storch, Associate Counsel, The State University of New York
Ms. Melissa Cohen, Director, Department of Navy Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office

Host Leaders
Dr. Kristina M. Johnson, Chancellor, The State University of New York
The Honorable Mr. Richard V. Spencer, Secretary of the Navy

Transcript

Good morning. It is an honor and a privilege to convene this historic first meeting of the Armed Services and the Academy as the Department of the Navy and the State University of New York today hosts the first regional discussion on how we can jointly work to prevent sexual assault and harassment. My name is Joseph Storch, I’m an attorney in the SUNY Office of General Counsel. On behalf of our entire SUNY community I offer you a warm welcome. (audience applauding) Sure. (audience applauding) We also welcome those of you joining us on our webcast as well. Before we move forward we wanted to announce that we’re pleased to make use of a social media wall today. During the day you can be part of the conversation about preventing violence if you post to Twitter or Instagram using the hashtag TalkActEnd or hashtag SUNYNavyUSMC. And you can see some posts already starting to come in. I’m proud to work for the greatest university in the world. A university whose motto is to learn, search and serve. SUNY educates about 1.3 million people annually. They come from large cities and small towns, from across the street and around the world. They come to SUNY because they want something better for themselves, their families and their communities. They come not just to learn but to innovate in research and to serve their fellow students, their communities and our nation. We recognize the sacred privilege that we have to educate the next generation of leaders and thinkers, and take seriously our commitment to the health and safety of our students, faculty and staff. We engage in research on proven and promising practices in prevention and response. We founded the Student Conduct Institute to educate professionals on how to properly respond to reports of violence and SUNY’s Got Your Back program to provide comfort bags to victims and survivors of violence while educating the hundreds of thousands of individuals who have or will assemble a bag on important resources that are available on and off our SUNY campuses. We created SPARC, the Sexual and Interpersonal Violence Prevention and Response Course and provided free to any institution in the nation and now around the world so we can share high quality, low cost violence prevention education and this year released TRAC, Training and Reducing Alcohol Consumption to do the same for use of alcohol. SUNY partnered with the One Love Foundation in 2017 to put on the largest installation of a dating violence awareness program in the history of this nation. And it would still stand as the largest except that in 2018 we partnered again and more than doubled the size and impact of that program. SUNY’s policies served as the model for Governor Andrew Cuomo’s Enough is Enough initiative and are the backbone of his work in Education Law 129-B, the most comprehensive law in the nation. At this point, I’d like to ask Sandra Casey, our Deputy General Counsel, my colleagues in the Office of General Counsel, the SUNY’s Got Your Back program and the Student Conduct Institute to rise and be recognized for their work and leadership. (audience applauding) We take pride in our research, we take pride in our service, we work hard, but we are far from perfect. The United States Department of the Navy has leadership and staff that are likewise committed to properly responding to violence and harassment and preventing such violence in the first place. I was honored to work with them on their first national conference last April at the Naval Academy, and even more honored for us to accept this invitation to host the first of a series of regional discussions to take place around the nation. The Navy is committed, it has great leadership, it is working hard to meet these goals and develop new practices but it also is not perfect. For this event is not as celebration of perfection, neither the Navy nor SUNY nor any fellow branch of the armed services or institution of higher education is perfect. If we were, this conference would be about 15 minutes, it would have a cake and that would be that. But we recognize that though much has been done there is far more to do. I am proud especially to have worked with Melissa Cohen and the Office of the Secretary and the incredible team of professionals there, her team and our team at SUNY. We value collegiality in higher education. We value working together very well, and I have yet to have an experience anything as collegial and seamless as our work with the Navy and the Marine Corps in putting this on today. Thank you to everyone who played a part and I hope this will be looked at as the first time we get together far from the last time. You see, Melissa and her team are forces to be reckoned with and we have an incredible team here at SUNY. But she and I and our teams alone could not have made today happen or accomplish the goals that we will set today. That takes leadership. Take a look around the room and see who is here with us. The chairman of the SUNY Board of Trustees who will join us soon. The Chancellor, college presidents, provosts, vice presidents and other leaders. The Secretary of the Navy, the superintendents of every service academy, more generals, admirals, officers and other leaders from the Marines, Navy, Air Force, Army and Coast Guard than I have ever seen in one place. Let us be clear, where those leaders stand is demonstrated by where they sit. Their stance against violence and harassment is clear because they are all sitting with us in this room today. Secretary Spencer, Chancellor Johnson, we could not be more grateful for your active leadership and we know that you are setting a tone that is heard clearly from here in Manhattan to Long Island and upstate New York to the service academies to forward operating bases and positions across the globe. Thank you. (audience applauding) In that vein this morning we will hear from leaders from within higher education in the armed services. Dr. Merryl Tisch serves as the Chairman of the State University of New York Board of Trustees. Dr. Tisch very much wanted to be here and offer remarks at this time but she is unable to join us, yet she will join us later and she sends her greetings and warm welcome for this important event. Today’s conference is a veritable who’s who of the leading speakers on this topic. We are privileged to have them and all of you and grateful to the university, our partners, the Navy and Marine Corps, for their work leading to today. We urge you to be active listeners and participants both socially and physically. Our speakers are deeply engaged in cutting edge research and programming and they welcome your active participation and discussion as we raise capacity together. Finally, it is hard to believe that we are coming up on 18 years since September 11, 2001. I was a student at SUNY Oswego at the time and I remember clearly how in the wake of the attacks, some of my classes emptied out as our active duty 10th Mountain and reserve and guard went to what was called then the Pile. And as some of you may know, in the wake of that attack, the United States Navy commissioned three San Antonio class ships named for New York, Arlington and Somerset, a fitting commemoration of the places and the people that were lost that day. What you may not know is that the bow of the U.S.S. New York is forged in part with several tons of steel from the towers. Lieutenant Commander Carr of the Navy was kind enough to get us a very high-quality photo of the ship, the U.S.S. New York, in the harbor with the Freedom Tower in the background. Now New York’s official state tree is the sugar maple. And working with a sawmill just outside of Albany, we were able to get 10-year-old New York state maple, cut it and engrave it with that incredible photo and each of today’s speakers’ names and role in today’s event. For just as the U.S.S. New York carries some of New York with it wherever it sails, so too each of our dedicated speakers at this event can carry that image and a bit of New York state with them as they go forth to do the work that we plan today. May this maple block serve as the memory of this event and a constant reminder that alone, we can accomplish little, but by working together towards a common goal we can and we will reduce and then end harassment and violence in the military and in our institutions of higher education. At this time I’d like to invite my Navy colleague Melissa Cohen to the stage. Melissa and her team have worked very hard, both at the national conference and today’s regional conference. They have been a pleasure to work with and I’d like to ask her to offer a few remarks. As she comes up, on behalf of the State University of New York, we would like to present Melissa, in light of her work, the work of her office and the work of all of her colleagues in the Navy, Marine Corps, Army, Air Force and Coast Guard with this plaque in honor of this meaningful and important event. (audience applauding)

Thank you so much. Good morning and welcome. Secretary Spencer, Mrs. Spencer, Chancellor Johnson, distinguished guests, appreciate very much your support today. Today we continue a conversation we started at the national discussion on sexual assault and sexual harassment just a few months ago at the United States Naval Academy back in April. We do so though in partnership with new partnerships and enduring partnerships. One with the outstanding State University of New York. Of course with our enduring relationships with all of our military service academies, with the representatives from our sister services, and at last count about 100 different colleges and universities represented here today. It is very exciting to be here. We left that national discussion with some homework to do. No assignment really no more important than sustaining the momentum and continuing to put a spotlight on these destructive and criminal behaviors. We all know that these are under-reported crimes. And that we have to be overt, we have to be relentless in demonstrating our commitment to our prevention and response efforts. There were two other topics though that were salient during the national discussion that we needed to follow up on. The first one being metrics and data, and left us with a lot of questions together as a team on are we collecting data in a standardized way consistently, can we measure them against each other, across years, is our data meaningful and is it informing our prevention efforts? And those were some of the rich conversations we had. The second conversation was on program evaluation. And measuring the effectiveness of what we’re doing. I know that we are all working very hard to combat these crimes, sexual assault, sexual harassment and related destructive behaviors. But do we know what’s working? And as importantly, do we know what’s not working? I know, from my experiences in the past, we’re very eager sometimes to add more, we can’t stop, we have to add more but do we take away, and do we really evaluate what’s going on. So what should you expect from today? As the day progresses, we’re really going to narrow down our topics and really focus on metrics and program evaluation and related topics so I challenge you to, here you are, ask questions, glean the best practices from these experts and leaders. Look for actionable items that you can take away, and share your expertise in the breakout sessions. This is your time, this is our time together. Last week the Department of Navy hosted a program evaluation workshop in the spirit of this conference, and we had rich conversations with our sister military services. We asked Dr. Emily Rothman from Boston University, Dr. Sharyn Potter from the University of New Hampshire, to be our guest speakers and do a deep dive. And I learned a lot from that and there were some actionable items that I’d like to share. The first one was a great reminder. That we are stronger together as a team. We know that there’s no one intervention that’s going to solve this problem, there’s no one silver bullet, so we have to leverage the expertise inside and outside of this room to get after this problem in a comprehensive way. I also learned a very valuable lesson that we all need to be reminded is that we have to do a lot of planning on the front end when we think about these prevention programs. I know that I want to rush to success and get an intervention that’s gonna succeed but if we don’t ask the questions on the front end it’s a return on investment, you know, a conversation to be had. If we don’t do the work on the front end. What behavior are we trying to change. Are we trying to stop all sexual assaults right out of the gate or maybe should we be looking at positive behaviors we could be increasing, maybe the conversation is about healthy relationships and dignity and respect and getting well before sexual assault and maybe that’s the needle we need to move but we have to measure it at the front end. And so if you get that pushback, just underscore the importance of pre-planning and how that will save us in the long run. So I just learned a lot from that workshop and that’s an example, the things that I hope that you walk away with. I want to close with thanking the State University of New York, Joe Storch and your team, I just couldn’t ask to be partners with more fearless leaders in this fight. To the Department of Navy team that is tireless, and to their commitment to excellence in everything that they do. But to you, this audience who’s taken time out of your day to come together and for you to be overt and relentless in demonstrating your commitment to combating sexual assault and sexual harassment. I thank you so very much, thank you. (audience applauding) SUNY’s chancellor, Dr. Kristina Johnson, is a regular at our events and trainings to educate people on preventing and responding to assault and harassment. She leads not just with words but with deeds, actively participating and moving the work forward. Dr. Johnson’s scholarship is almost without parallel. But what makes her a truly remarkable leader is a personal commitment to the health and safety of our students. To offer remarks and introduce the Secretary of the Navy, please welcome the 13th Chancellor of the State University of New York, Dr. Kristina M. Johnson. (audience applauding)

Well good morning. It is, excuse me, my great pleasure as a chancellor of the nation’s largest comprehensive university to, a university with 64 campuses, 1.3 million students, 91,000 faculty and staff, to welcome you to this first regional discussion on sexual assault and sexual harassment prevention. Better people, better leaders, better nation. As you know, this conference follows, of course, the inaugural national discussion on sexual assault and sexual harassment in America’s colleges, universities and service academies held at the United States Naval Academy in April and continues to call for our educational institutions to end sexual assault and sexual harassment. We’re honored to be joined today by our Secretary of the Navy, Richard Spencer, his wife, Mrs. Polly Spencer, Lieutenant General Darryl Williams, Superintendent of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, Vice Admiral Sean Buck, Superintendent of the U.S. Naval Academy, Rear Admiral Michael Alfultis, SUNY Maritime, Rear Admiral William Kelly, Superintendent United States Coast Guard, Lieutenant General Jay Silveria, Superintendent U.S. Air Force, and General Letchi of the Marine Corps. And a special shout out to Melissa Cohen and Joe Storch and their teams for organizing this important event. Thank you for your commitment to making this issue such a high priority for all of our campuses. We know that, and as you said, Melissa, that this is gonna require ongoing effort that’s collaborative and intentional. Our responsibility as leaders of the young men and women who will one day run the nation, if they aren’t already doing that, to properly prepare them for these leadership positions. At SUNY this means going beyond providing our students a world-class educational experience. It also means ensuring that their experience on our campus is a positive one. Where they feel valued, welcomed, safe and secure. Just like the armed services that are represented here today, we at SUNY believe in building character, and that means helping our students to mature and learn how to recognize and respect boundaries and differences while engaging with others, whether it’s in the classroom, a dormitory, or at a campus party. Clearly, we all share the same goals, that is why I’m so excited to be here with you today. To exchange ideas on best practices and to ensure the optimal educational experiences for our young people. Let me be clear. It begins by establishing an immutable fact, that our commitment to foster an inclusive learning environment under all of SUNY’s 64 campuses and affiliated organizations is a fundamental part of who we are. It is what we do and it is a critical component of SUNY’s character and ethos as it is our commitment to outstanding scholarship and academic excellence. Just as the military’s commitment to the ultimate safety of its men and women is non-negotiable, regardless of their assignments or rank, so it is with SUNY in all of our 1.3 million students and 91,000 faculty and staff, I love just saying that. One of the greatest experiences of my professional life was serving as the Under Secretary of the U.S. Department of Energy in the Obama administration. And part of my portfolio was nuclear energy. And as we all know, the U.S. Navy has earned a well-deserved international reputation for excellence in the safe operations of its nuclear Navy program. It takes such operations so seriously because it’s critical to health and wealth of the men and women as well as the security of our nation. I learned as Under Secretary what it means to be all in on safety. I saw the total commitment and absolute dedication shown in executing the highest standards of safety and care in the world and the maintenance of our nuclear Navy. Imagine what kind of Navy we would have if the members were uncertain of the institution’s commitment to their safety. What kind of campus leaders are we if we tolerate an environment of systemic harassment and debasement of entire groups within our organizations? Combating sexual assault and harassment is not just a moral imperative, it’s a fundamental safety issue as well. And we can learn a lot from the Navy and private industry about safety and apply it to ending sexual assault and harassment on our college campuses. Prior to being Chancellor of the State University of New York I ran a clean energy company called Cube Hydro Partners. It was about hydropower. Our employees worked with heavy equipment in confined spaces and underwater, all very potentially dangerous operations. It’s important to me and our board, or was important to me, I’m no longer there, and our Board that we had a corporate-wide safety program that I instituted including a safety manual and processes and procedures required to maintain a safe working environment. That program required we start every project with a project safety review. We identify the potential pitfalls and safety hazards of the job at hand, and we discussed what we had to do to keep our people safe. The second thing we did was we instituted safety walks, where management and work crews walked together and looked out for our people, made sure that our workers were wearing hardhats, steel-toed shoes and other protective clothing. We checked for trip hazards, unsafe work conditions and if we found anything that could harm our workers, each and every employee was empowered to stop work. So I read with great interest how Lieutenant General Williams ordered a full day stand down at West Point last February, suspending classes so his leadership, faculty, staff and cadets could address sexual assault and harassment at the Academy. I’m interested in hearing about the experiences following that command, what differences the campus culture did you notice before and after, and that’s a spoiler alert that’s gonna come up in the Q&A. But it takes that kind of intentionality to eradicate the scourge of sexual assault and harassment from our culture, and it starts with tone at the top. There must be a zero-tolerance policy for such behavior. As Lieutenant General Silveria said, if you can’t treat each other with dignity and respect, then get out. Now that’s what I’m talking about. (audience applauding) Given the urgency of the moment, I’d like to thank my colleagues who joined us here today from as far away as California, Quebec, South Carolina, and of course the New York-New Jersey area. Your presence speaks to your institutions’ commitment and to ensure the safety of its students and employees and that is the least we can do for our students and that’s the least that they should expect of us. And our students have taken it upon themselves to be proactive by living the creed if you see something, do something. Right here at SUNY we have examples of students stepping up like Kyle Richard, a SUNY Cortland student athlete who risked his life while helping to prevent a sexual assault at an off-campus party, getting shot twice in the process. And as awful as it was, Kyle’s heroism is an inspirational example for all of us. In fact, I’m proud to share that after graduation we successfully recruited Kyle to join SUNY to help Joe and his team lead the system-wide effort for greater awareness to the issue of sexual assault and sexual harassment on our campuses. And I’d like to give Kyle a round of applause. (audience applauding) Where is Kyle? I know he’s here somewhere, there he is. We all know the ability to thrive and learn is interrupted in an unsafe or fearful environment. We also know that members of underserved groups experience sexual harassment, stalking, domestic violence at much higher rates, and that many victims of violence as a result are not able to meet their educational goals. In addition to the direct trauma of the violence, this means they’re less likely to graduate and will have poor health, lower income, and all the other factors that come from not completing their education. At SUNY we have developed a comprehensive policy agenda that includes providing cutting-edge training to enhance the knowledge and skills of our students, faculty and staff, and to promote campus safety through training. It’s important to have a very frank conversation about these difficult topics and for the last two years SUNY has taken the lead on preventing intimate violence with a program called the Sexual and Interpersonal Violence and Prevention Response Course, or SPARC. That was mentioned by Joe Storch. SPARC is an on-line course that encompasses important training requirements stipulated by state and federal laws such as Title Nine, and New York’s 2015 groundbreaking Enough is Enough legislation launched by Governor Andrew Cuomo. The goal of SPARC is to raise student awareness of what constitutes interpersonal and sexual violence. It’s designed to help students understand complex issues such as consent, harassment, and sexual misconduct while empowering them to become active bystanders and advocates for change. SPARC also provides students with local and campus resources should they ever need help. As part of our efforts to constantly improve, this year we added another training module called TRAC, Training and Reducing Alcohol Consumption. It teaches students about the effects of alcohol, how they can be safe around alcohol, and what to do when friends drink too much. SUNY believes so deeply in the importance of these training tools that we offer these programs at no cost to any college anywhere that registers for them. And each college can customize SPARC to feature their staff and students and provide local information and resources. Since its launch in April of 2017, SPARC has gone national and global with more than 200 colleges around the country and overseas who have registered to use it. That means when SPARC is fully operational, there will be more than two million students at our nation’s colleges that will hear SPARC’s message of interpersonal safety and violence prevention. Those are critical messages in today’s world. So that is why we’re here today, my friends. We are honored to work together and stand with all the branches of the military, state and federal governments, and universities and colleges. Anyone who is willing to partner with us to share our lessons and best practices. It is in all of our interests, civilian and military, to create an environment where all our people are valued, and have the freedom to live up to their highest expectations while contributing to the greater good of our institutions. And they do so because they feel valued, protected and their humanity is affirmed. I thank you, Secretary Spencer, for this invitation to speak this morning, and on behalf of SUNY we look forward to our continuing partnership to end sexual assault and sexual harassment on our campuses. Thank you for your leadership and thank you all for your attendance today. (audience applauding) It is now my great honor to call to the podium our great Secretary, Richard Spencer, Department of Navy. (audience applauding)

Thank you Chancellor Johnson. It truly is exciting, I just want to share with you kind of walking up here and the day before, we all have busy times and busy calendars, and all of a sudden, this arrives yesterday, and I was flying up here, it was, I just felt an excitement. The work that everybody has done culminating in this event, two venue changes to accommodate the growing numbers of participants. We have to get after this and we will get after this. I’m all about productivity so I’m gonna keep my comments quick and to the point. But before we start I just want to make a comment. During everyone’s quiet time today, please keep the people from the Bahamas in your thoughts and prayers. I just got the report that we’re battening down our Naval facilities in Charleston and all the DoD up and down the coast is getting ready as are our civilian counterparts, so let’s keep everybody in our thoughts and prayers in that regard. We do have an august group here today from the DoD side. The introductions have already been made, but gentlemen, thank you for your participation, and for those of you who might not understand how the DoD works, just getting these people in one room at the same time is absolutely stunning. And I think it really does underscore the Department’s commitment to this topic. But I also want to take a moment to say not only do we have our senior officer leadership here, but I want to give a shout out to the senior enlisted leadership here that’s here. This topic transcends rank and privilege up and down the ladder. We are all engaged in this. I’d be remiss if I didn’t also give a shout out to Melissa Cohen who’s done just an absolutely fantastic job at the Department of the Navy. I was lucky enough to meet up with her about a year ago, and we’re getting after it. Joe, thank you for your work here, it has been a pleasure. And I think the impact will soon be found and resound throughout the whole institution let alone the country in this regard. Dr. Elise Van Winkle, our person who sits here and bears the whole mantle of the Department of Defense when it comes to this topic and ladies and gentlemen, that’s no small mantle that has to be beared, is doing some amazing things. I want you all to find her out and talk to her because there’s much to share between the Department of Defense resources that we’ve put against this topic and what you’re doing. I hear about SPARC, I hear about TRAC, those people in the Navy who know one of my battle cries, it’s you know what, we do things very well inside the Navy, we do things very well inside the Department of Defense, but every once in awhile we look at our belly button too much to try to solve a problem. Lift your head up, look outside the wire, get outside the gate and see what’s going on. Best practices can and will be shared in order to expedite a solution to the issues that we’re addressing here today. It really is, it really is going to be a fascinating day and I’m looking forward to the free-flowing conversations and I can’t underscore that enough, because the more that we talk, the more that we interchange, the more that we will learn. And I know there’s many voices here and many voices mean many different points of view and many different experiences and we have to bring those experiences forward, so we have a rich tapestry that we can work with. This is an issue that I feel very strongly about and very committed about. It was January of this last, of this year, that former Secretary Wilson, who at that point was Secretary of the Air Force, Secretary Esper, who at that point was Secretary of the Army, and now Secretary of Defense, and I guess I’m the last Secretary standing in my original job. We used to have breakfast and I was saying last night, we used to have breakfast without staff. And for those of you who are outside the military, let me tell you that’s a frightening thought for the staff. And we found the power in working together and collaborating. And this topic came up because we’d just come off the Hill and rightly so. The Hill had pretty well beat us up because our numbers were not going in the right direction and there was, I’m gonna call it an assumption, because we had no benchmark at that point, that they were probably not good to begin with. And I kept saying, you know, we need some sort of comparison for two reasons. One to really get after this issue and two to stop getting pummeled on the Hill. And we decided to have this national discussion on sexual assault sexual harassment and by drawing the last straw, the Navy got to have it at Annapolis and put it together. But we were proud to do that. And it was just the beginning. I was speaking to Secretary Wilson who is now the President of the University of Texas, El Paso, and I spoke to Secretary Esper and I gave him the numbers of the people who were showing up and the venue changes and the excitement in the air and both of them remain tremendously interested and in the case of Dr. Esper, totally committed to this topic and its eradication. When we look at the scourge of sexual harassment I look at it in two ways. The dignity of the human being but then I put on my business hat and I look at it as an erosion of good order and discipline, and that affects my readiness, and ladies and gentlemen at the end of the day that is my job. And I have made a commitment that I will do everything we can on my watch to start the eradication of this, and I say start because I want everyone to understand this is a huge co-generational issue. It’s not gonna be solved overnight, we should not expect it be solved overnight, we should expect to go after this with great expedition, great trepidation, courage, thinking outside the box and energy to get after this issue. But let us all manage our expectations because I don’t want people burning out along the way and I don’t want some of our audiences and some of our resource providers burning out along the way. We need their commitment, we need their understanding, and we owe them that and in return they owe to resources. I know that Dr. Johnson and every university, college and academy official here feels the same way about their organizations. These destructive behaviors not only harm our communities, but as I said earlier, they degrade our institutions, and violate our primary core values. But most importantly, and I believe this, most importantly, they break a sacred trust. As I told a gathering of distinguished women in uniform last month, those who don our uniforms should never have to watch their backs amongst fellow teammates. And the same is true for anyone in American colleges and universities. I know that you share my resolve that no student, military, civilian, graduate or undergraduate should ever have to fight or fear for their public safety nor should they have to fight for basic dignity while pursuing a degree of higher learning. I think in order to eliminate this scourge on American campuses we must continually reevaluate our approach to prevention, which includes putting the data together that we collect and measuring the effectiveness of the programs that Melissa talked about earlier. We have a lot to learn from everybody in the room today. And we have a lot to learn from each other. The academies and the Department of Defense has put together some amazing programs, they have some amazing resources that we’ve put toward this issue, and we want to share that with you. As I alluded to earlier, SPARC, TRAC, ideas like this, programs like this, we want to hear from you. This truly is a give-take scenario. Today we’re gonna build on the progress we made back in April, and we’ll make it better because we’re gonna have more conversations and that is the foundation from where we go. We discussed best practices while we were in Annapolis, new prevention strategies with universities, colleges and presidents from universities and colleges, we identified the capabilities and the data that military services and service academies can offer our civilian counterparts, we also talked about what we can learn together. Today marks that continuation as I just said. Every education leader in this room has a unique perspective on best practices, on innovation, on approaches, that can benefit all our students, so please speak up, be engaged. This is the first of many to follow. That’s where the excitement continues. I’ve already heard that we’re, in the quadrants of the U.S., we’re gonna have meetings going on throughout this whole year and going forward, and then as Joe suggested, we’ll have benchmark meetings every other year to see what we’ve done and how we’ve gotten to what we said we’re gonna deliver. To use a naval analogy, we have a role in rigging this ship for speed. I beat a drum in the United States Navy of urgency. This is and must remain the message at hand. And we want to do it with you alongside us. We want to be able to provide America’s students and their families the safe, healthy learning environment they have a fundamental right to expect. Last week we observed the 56th anniversary of the march on Washington where Dr. King spoke of the fierce urgency of now. If today, this should be worthwhile, if today what we learn is to be put into action, we need to keep that spirit in these discussions. The fierce urgency of now demands that we improve how data is collected and reported at campuses across the university, the fierce urgency of now demands that we evaluate what works and what doesn’t work in all our prevention and training. The fierce urgency of now demands that we communicate through word, and example to every student, professor, administrator, officer, sailor, soldier, Marine, Coast Guardsmen and mariner. We have a responsibility to do that and we will carry it out because every day that we fail to move the needle, ladies and gentlemen means another life could be shattered. And we cannot accept that. You will soon see Senator Martha McSally present a video, and she’s sorry she couldn’t be here. Her commitment to this topic is unassailable. And I stand beside her saying I refuse to be an inactive bystander, and I know by your presence here today you will also share that mantle, so let’s attack this opportunity with the fierce urgency of now. Thank you very much. (audience applauding)