DATE: Wednesday, October 29, 1997           TAG: 9710290625

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B9   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY MATTHEW BOWERS, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: NORFOLK                           LENGTH:   89 lines

ODU RAISES AWARENESS OF SEXUAL-ASSAULT RISKS MOST COLLEGE RAPE VICTIMS ARE ATTACKED BY SOMEONE THEY KNOW, USUALLY AFTER DRINKING.

The numbers show lots of things about sexual assaults and students:

One out of four college women has been raped or assaulted.

One in six has been assaulted during the college years.

From 75 percent to 85 percent are attacked by a date or someone they know, usually after drinking.

The vast majority of sexual assaults go unreported.

The numbers, from various studies as reported by local college officials, only go so far, however.

They don't show the bright-eyed 19-year-old with the ready smile sitting in the Webb Center at Old Dominion University. She's the one telling how three years earlier, she passed out from alcohol and a mysterious blue pill, and awoke to find a boy she knew raping her.

She had heard the warnings, and considered herself a savvy 16.

``I had all kinds of preparation: sex ed, all that,'' the woman said. ``I didn't see it coming when it happened to me.''

Most don't - that's why it keeps happening. And that's why counselors and students think reminders, such as ODU's ``Sexual Assault Awareness Week'' this week, are important. Activities include lectures, self-defense training and decision-making workshops. Scheduled Monday night was a candlelight vigil by college men to show support for ending violence against women.

College women are especially vulnerable to sexual assault, college officials say. They're on their own for the first time. They're plunging into a world of new friends, no parents and plenty of alcohol. And old attitudes don't change easily, officials add - assault victims are often made to feel at fault for being in the wrong place, or going out with the wrong guy, or even wearing the wrong clothes.

``There continue to be sexual predators out there who prey on women and assault women,'' said Sharon L. Payne, a counselor and adviser to the Women's Resource Office at Virginia Wesleyan College.

Like most such victims, the ODU student never told police.

She also never told her parents - it had happened at a forbidden gathering.

And she wound up telling few friends. It seemed that everyone - and not just the involved boy and his crowd - blamed her, and accepted what happened as a natural outcome of a night of partying.

``Even my girlfriends made it seem like it wasn't a big deal,'' the ODU student said.

The studies and statistics are part of what Jody Wolford-Tucker works with as assistant director of ODU's Women's Center and coordinator of the center's SAFE program. SAFE stands for ``Sexual Assault-Free Environment.''

But she also works regularly with women students who tell her about being attacked. These are women who don't show up on the official one-rape-every-couple-of-years statistics collected by police and Virginia higher-education officials. Some tell her about years-old attacks that occurred in other states.

This is why the college's awareness week is heading into its eighth year, and why sexual-assault awareness is part of most college's orientations.

Students receive general safety tips, such as ``being very careful about persons when you first get here,'' said Antionette K. Lampkin, director of new student orientation at Norfolk State University. ``Get to know people - don't just get a nickname.''

Old Dominion University was one of the first schools in the nation to take such a proactive stance on the sexual-assault issue. Officials know because they could find little else on which to model their efforts.

``We're trying to head off future problems by listening to what we know from what these national studies told us,'' Wolford-Tucker said. ``This campus has taken the approach that we're not going to wait for the people to come forward.''

Wolford-Tucker said things are getting better, but recent studies still show that only 16 percent of rapes get reported to police, up from 10 percent not long ago. A large study in 1988 said that only 5 percent of on-campus rapes are reported to any official, she said.

It's worse than that, said Raquel Wright, a 23-year-old geography student at ODU from Fairfax County. ``I'd say almost 99 percent have been assaulted in some way,'' meaning physically attacked or placed in an uncomfortable, frightening position, she said.

The ODU rape victim probably won't attend any of the week's events. She already knows much of what they'll discuss. Awareness of sexual assault ideally should begin much sooner, at home, she said.

``People need to make children aware of what kind of people are out there,'' she said.

She insisted that she's over what happened to her, and wiser.

Still, she and her current boyfriend still talk about it. She asked that her name not be published. And she's studying psychology and criminal justice.

She's interested in exploring why people commit crimes. KEYWORDS: COLLEGE STUDENTS RAPE SEXUAL ASSAULT

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