Or, we can choose to admit our mistakes and our failures. We can work with campus organizations like the Coalition Against Sexual Violence, Response and PRDRE, which represent different yet complementary approaches to the problem of rape and sexual assault at Harvard. We can make phone calls and write letters to our deans, senior tutors and SASH advisers. And, perhaps the easiest and most effective thing we can do is talk with each other openly. Even if we are not "too smart" to experience rape--as the statistics reveal--my hope is that we will be smart enough to realize our error in judgment and begin to make amends.

Fifty-two undergraduates were raped at Harvard last year. And that is just in the last year. Sexual assault happens here with survivors knowing their attackers. It happens in dorm rooms and at parties. It happens to people you know. Do not be so afraid to hear these words that you dismiss them.

"I am a survivor of sexual assault."

Stephen N. Smith '02 is a sociology concentrator in Adams House. He is a peer educator with Peer Relations and Date Rape Education and a member of the Coalition Against Sexual Violence.