Editor’s note: This story mentions stalking and sexual assault.
This January marks the seventeenth year of the National Stalking Awareness Month (NSAM), and Women Helping Women’s University of Cincinnati (UC) campus advocates have been using their platform to address the important issue. Zoe Miller and Claudia Uchtman, both campus advocates for Women Helping Women (WHW), make it a point to bring awareness to the serious problem of stalking in their work with WHW and on UC’s campus.
“We serve students, staff and faculty,” Miller said. “We’ve even had people that have graduated, reach back out to us, and then we get them connected to our main agency. But yeah, we see everybody. Anybody can be a survivor, and we’re here to help everyone.”
Miller has been a campus advocate for WHW for about a year and a half and went to the UC for her bachelor’s and master’s degree in social work.
Uchtman went to Northern Kentucky University and graduated with a bachelor’s in criminal justice. She first began work with WHW as a member of the DVERT program, the Domestic Violence Enhanced Response Team. Uchtman has been a campus-based advocate at UC since last October.
“I realized there was a need for advocacy work, so that’s why I was drawn to this field,” she said.
The goal of Stalking Awareness Month is to bring attention to stalking, especially in the age range of college students.
“I don’t think [students] realize how prevalent [stalking] is,” Miller said. “And now adding the pandemic and adding all the access we have to digital platforms, it really increases the likelihood if someone wants to stalk somebody else, they have a lot of avenues now digitally, to be able to accomplish that.”
“A lot of times, people that are in domestic violence situations, they’re also stalked,” said Uchtman. “Or sexual assault survivors, they’re also stalked. So, it’s like they all intersect and intertwine.”
Miller reiterates that, unfortunately, college campuses allow stalkers more access to the individuals they’re stalking, especially students or people working together.
“Say we have a protection in order in place, and it’s outside school bounds,” Miller said. “A lot of times, the orders will have an exception when they’re in the classroom, to where the person that they’re asking for protection from gets adjusted while they’re in that classroom, and they just have to sit on opposite ends of the class. How does a survivor focus on their presentation, or information they’re getting from their professor, when their stalker is sitting right behind them?”
According to the National Stalking Awareness website, one in six women and one in 17 men have experienced stalking, with about 90% of stalking victims falling between 18 and 24. About half of college students who were sexually assaulted also experienced stalking.
Miller adds that stalking can be confusing. By law, the definition of stalking includes that it has to be a pattern of two or more times. This can cause a gray area, especially if a stalker is subtle.
When students come to the campus-based advocates, the advocates do what the students want, according to Uchtman.
“We, as advocates, don’t tell anybody what to do,” she said. “We listen to what they’re saying, give suggestions and refer to the Title IX office if they need academic accommodations. Some people don’t know that they can get a protection order, so it’s explaining that process, or going to the police station or referring them to counseling. Anything that they possibly could need, we can get them connected with resources.”
Uchtman and Miller will go to court with survivors if the survivor wishes to file a protection order or to interviews with detectives.
After partnering with UC’s Student Government, Uchtman and Miller now run a UC safe fund that provides survivors with items that they may not be able to get. In the past, they have provided security cameras for a survivor who felt like someone was lurking outside of their apartment.
“Talking that financial stress and strain off of them is what we’re here to do,” Miller said.
Though its name is Women Helping Women, Uchtman and Miller support women, men and/or nonbinary survivors.
Miller and Uchtman work with the Student Wellness Center, and their office is located at 559 Steger Student Life Center.
The office is open Monday thru Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., and accepts appointments and walk-ins. Those who feel like they may be a victim of gender-based violence can call or text (513) 431-3807/1563 or message uc_whwcampusadv on Instagram. There is also a 24-hour hotline outside of office hours, (513) 381-5610. Services are available to all UC students on Clermont, Blue Ash or Uptown campus.
