The intent behind the upcoming SARA program is great. Who can criticize any program that aims to alleviate the stress put on victims of sexual assault by providing them with immediate assistance and the assurance that if any problems arise, help is just a phone call away? The statistics are alarming and undeniable, and to ignore that sexual assaults occur with great frequency on college campuses would be to deny an inescapable fact.

Still, Simpson is what it is, and many programs aimed to operate on campuses with more anonymity and fewer “known faces” everywhere you go often don’t play out as well as planned at our smaller-scaled school.

While we don’t doubt that there SARA’s have agreed to a code of the utmost confidentiality, we can’t help but fear that the “everyone knows everybody” trend won’t backfire in the SARA program, causing victims to fear reporting their assaults to the person who sits next to them in English 205. Still, this may just be the pessimism in us showing through, and we wish the program, and all of its intended purposes, the best of luck.