It Won’t End Unless YOU Do Something!

Green Dot is a power-based personal violence prevention campaign being implemented on Gonzaga’s campus this academic year.  The Green Dot strategy is a comprehensive approach to violence prevention that capitalizes on the power of peer and cultural influence across all levels of the socio-ecological model.  Informed by social change theory, the model targets all community members as potential bystanders, and seeks to engage them, through awareness, education and skills-practice, in proactive behaviors that establish intolerance of violence as the norm, as well as reactive interventions in high-risk situations—resulting in the ultimate reduction of violence.

Gonzaga’s Green Dot initiative is any attitude, behavior, choice or word that counteracts a red-dot of personal violence against someone by communicating intolerance for sexual violence, interpersonal violence, stalking and other similar activities as well as promoting a safer environment for everyone. The attitudes and values that lead people to abusive and disrespectful behavior, such as that reflected in sexual assault, are unacceptable.  We challenge every member of the Gonzaga University community to actively work to counteract acts of sexual violence and make the prevention of further violence a personal priority.

We feel the Green Dot prevention approach will help give everyone an opportunity to participate in a greater capacity and to unite our community in the understanding and reflection of Jesuit values and beliefs in all our actions, particularly those which involve cura personalis.

Students, staff, faculty and administrators at Gonzaga University are being educated this fall about the Green Dot Strategy and how power-based personal violence won’t end unless we all do something! We look forward to sharing this strategy with all of the Gonzaga parents and challenge each one of you to consider doing a Green Dot in your community! For more information about this culture changing initiative, please visit the Gonzaga Green Dot website at www.gonzagagreendot.com.

Few will have the greatness to bend history itself;
but each of us can work to change a small
portion of events, and in the total of all those acts will
be written the history of this generation.
-Robert F. Kennedy