Faculty-Led Initiatives

Dr. Courtney Ahrens

From 2018-2021, Dr. Ahrens led the effort to research, design and implement the NATB ‘protocol of engagement,’ an online resource guide that provides faculty with supportive language, decision-making pathways and reporting responsibilities for students who disclose sexual assault.  In faculty focus groups conducted in Spring 2017, faculty reported that students regularly sought them out for support but they often felt unprepared to respond effectively.  These faculty guidelines came out of faculty requests for more specific guidance.  As an established researcher on sexual assault disclosures, Dr. Ahrens relied on her research expertise to develop these faculty guidelines, and also consulted broadly with university and CSU stakeholders to refine and make publicly available this innovative online resource.  Dr. Ahrens developed an online training video to accompany the faculty guidelines (see here) and currently provides in-person, 1-hour trainings to departments and campus constituencies to help train faculty in its use. 

Currently, Dr. Ahrens is the lead CSULB trainer for Flip the Script with EAAA,™ an evidence-based program developed by Dr. Charlene Senn at the University of Windsor, Ontario.  Flip the Script with EAAA™ is a 12 hour curriculum-based sexual assault resistance program that challenges female gender roles.  In this program, cis- and trans-gendered students who identify with female gender roles are empowered to identify warning cues, overcome barriers to resisting unwanted sexual behaviors, take steps to reduce perpetrator advantage, and employ verbal and physical self-defense strategies to protect themselves from harm.  Complementary programs for non-binary and self-identified men are under development.  For more information about Flip the Script with EAAA™implementation at CSULB, please contact Dr. Ahrens at courtney.ahrens@csulb.edu.

Dr. Nina Flores

Dr. Nina M. Flores is an Assistant Professor in the Social & Cultural Analysis of Education graduate program at California State University Long Beach. She has written articles and book chapters about campus sexual assault, gendered public space, and street harassment, and her research focuses on the ways in which harassment affects a range of daily lived experiences.  For NATB in 2018, she led project discussions on how to protect faculty from both interpersonal violence and targeted harassment, such as when faculty are zeroed in on by groups or members of the public and experience a flood of online or in-person harassment. Based on faculty experiences, Dr. Flores helped to identify the myriad ways faculty may be targeted, how public harassment can escalate, and the promising university-level best practices for supporting faculty through these incidents.  In 2020-2021, she was appointed a fellow at the National Center of Free Speech and Civic Engagement and developed a series of information and strategy sessions designed for use by individual faculty members or their institutions.  See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_jT8R-MSpY and research article https://issuu.com/ccowper/docs/flores_-_tweets_threats_and_censorship_2_?e=41936391/92097934

Dr. Bita Ghafoori

Dr. Bita Ghafoori is CSULB Professor of Advanced Studies in Education and Counseling, Coordinator of the Graduate Program in Counseling, and Director of the CSULB Long Beach Trauma Recovery Center. Dr. Ghafoori has published over 20 articles on stress and traumatic experience, and her book International Perspectives on Traumatic Stress: Theory, Access, and Mental Health (with co-authors Y. Caspi and S. Smith) was issued by Nova Science Publishers in 2016.  Dr. Ghafoori is a longstanding NATB campus/community partner, serving on the Coordinated Community Response Team (CCRT) and several of its planning sub-committees.

On behalf of NATB, Dr. Ghafoori created a workshop titled “Traumatic Stress Among Student Survivors of Sexual and Physical Violence:  A Workshop for Faculty.”  The workshop aimed to educate faculty about the traumatic effects of sexual and physical violence experienced by our students, and to offer guidance in trauma-informed care practices relevant to educational settings. Topics include the impact of trauma of sexual and physical violence and the stress response, vicarious trauma, barriers for faculty, and trauma-informed care and interventions.

Dr. Nancy Martin

Dr. Martin is an Associate Professor of Sociology at CSULB.  Her research and teaching focus broadly on gender, religion and social change, with more recent projects that examine changes in language and policy related to gendered violence. From 2014-2015, Dr. Martin served as an AAAS Science and Technology Policy Fellow at the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) as coordinator for The Agency’s worldwide efforts to prevent and respond to gender-based violence (GBV). In this role, she worked with consultants and USAID technical experts to develop toolkits and training to raise awareness of GBV and include GBV prevention and response in international development efforts across sectors.

For NATB, Dr. Martin developed and implemented a curriculum infusion model that incorporated violence awareness, prevention and response into select classes in the College of Liberal Arts.  The aim was to help faculty incorporate information about sexual assault, intimate partner violence, and stalking into their courses by (1) providing a model to support faculty in developing lesson plans tailored to their own courses and (2) connecting them with clinical professionals who attend classes as guest speakers and introduce campus resources.  In Fall 2019, Martin led a team of 9 CLA faculty fellows who selected a course into which they embedded a relevant learning module on some aspect of sexual violence and were paired with a CSULB mental health professional who provided additional student support.  Based on The Engelhard Project at Georgetown, Dr. Martin is available to discuss ‘lessons learned’ from this pilot project for similar curricular infusion efforts at CSULB.

Dr. Marc Rich

Dr. Marc Rich is Professor of Communication Studies and the creator and director of interACT, a nationally recognized social justice performance troupe based out of CSULB.  interACT performances employ performative and bystander education theory to help participants rehearse assertive communication strategies and to safely and creatively intervene to prevent violence.  A nationally recognized leader and scholar, he has published widely on predatory crimes like sexual assault and stalking, on the development and evaluation of interactive curriculum, and on related social justice issues.  Dr. Rich is an instructor at Gavin de Becker’s Advanced Threat Assessment and Management Academy (https://training.gdba.com/) and a consultant to corporations and community organizations on the prevention of workplace violence. 

From the outset of NATB, Dr. Rich has helped to develop its primary prevention and outreach strategy.  In concert with MVP Leadership Trainings, Dr. Rich and team have offered interACT performances to over 6,000 CSULB students in Residential Life, Athletics, Fraternities and Sororities and other student constituencies as part of ongoing NATB programming.  In addition, Dr. Rich created an innovative faculty ally training—the first in the nation–that deployed bystander intervention and social justice pedagogy to engage faculty on issues related to sexual/gender violence.  This scenario-based, hands-on training was designed to help faculty and staff better understand predatory violence and to learn collaboratively how to provide students (and each other) with appropriate support.  Trainings also offered faculty a better understanding of campus and off-campus resources and which agencies to contact for specific situations.

Dr. Shira Tarrant

Dr. Shira Tarrant is Professor of Women’s, Gender & Sexuality Studies at CSULB and the author of numerous books on gender and politics, including When Sex Became Gender, Men Speak Out:  Views on Gender, Sex and Power, Fashion Talks: Undressing the Power of Style, and most recently, The Pornography Industry: What Everyone Needs to Know (Oxford University Press). She is a regular commentator for mainstream press venues like Bitch, Bust, Ms., The Huffington Post and The Atlantic. In 2019-2020, Tarrant was selected as a Fellow with the University of California National Center for Free Speech and Civic Engagement where she worked on a project title “Sex on Campus:  A Teaching Toolkit to Promote Free Speech and Data-Driven Dialogue.” 

With a Ph.D. in political science, Dr. Tarrant applied her academic interests in public policy to a review of campus policies related to sexual assault disclosures, Title IX, and campus climate in relation to ‘best practice’ recommendations by state and federal agencies.  Her final report for NATB articulated the ways faculty could advocate for better policies on campus in such areas as preferred reporting policies, more confidential advocates on campus, and better staffing of student conduct offices.