The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee is implementing a task force designed to improve communication between various campus groups and help boost visibility of larger social issues on campus.

The as yet unnamed task force will act as a liaison between organizations and will focus on coordinating support and awareness on issues such as sexual assault, harassment, stalking and domestic violence on campus.

Plans for the task force, which would take effect sometime this semester, include promoting these issues as not strictly “women’s issues” but as larger social issues that affect everyone.

Individual organizations such as the Women’s Resource Center (WRC) and the Norris Health Center have been providing similar services for years, but Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs Rita Cheng thinks the time has come for “a sense of community and involvement in issues relevant to campus.”

Cheng stressed that there is no crisis at UWM, but that the task force would be an opportunity to bring people together in a positive way.

Director of the Women’s Resource Center and Interim Assistant Dean of Students Cathy Seasholes, who is working in a consultant role on the new task force, called it a “dynamic idea” and said that it could help bring together organizations on a largely decentralized campus.

Both Cheng and Seasholes said that the task force was not started directly because of the controversial “Bedtime Stories” photo essay that ran in the Nov. 23 edition of the UWM Post, though both admitted it played a role in the decision to implement the task force.

Cheng said the “Bedtime Stories” controversy gave the university a chance to build a negative into a positive, and Seasholes called the essay a catalyst for the creation of the task force.

“A variety of students spoke up to several different offices regarding the controversy,” Seasholes said.

Some of the organizations expected to work with the task force include Be On the Safe Side (B.O.S.S.), the LGBT Resource Center, University Housing, the UWM Police, the WRC and academic departments throughout UWM.

Seasholes said the task force would likely include student members and would help different organizations work with each other to provide a “baseline response” if a student needed help with an issue that more than one organization could cover.

The task force is expected to be fully operational sometime during the spring semester.

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