On Wednesday March 18 from 3:00-4:15pm in room seven of the Business Building, another Rhetoric and Civic Life class hosted a deliberation called “50 Shades of Consent.” The deliberation discussed the growing issue of sexual assault, particularly on college campuses like Penn State.

The deliberation began with the moderators briefly introducing themselves. There were too many people in the audience for it to feasibly introduce itself, so the moderators improvised and asked the audience to voluntarily introduce themselves. The audience was surprisingly eager to volunteer. I was pleasantly surprised to see that the members of the deliberation team as well as their professor eagerly participated in the deliberation which added much to the discussion and created a more casual flow to things. Speaking of casual, everyone, including the moderators and professor, was dressed casually which helped create that casual, relaxed atmosphere, but I think it’s always better to dress up rather than down, especially as a presenter.

The deliberation team did not use any notecards and seemed to really know what they were talking about which was refreshing for the audience. They wrote down on chalkboards the points people brought up throughout the discussion. The setup of the room was perfect. It was in room seven of the Business Building, as mentioned, and was set up in a semi-circular fashion with a podium at the front/bottom of the room and chalkboards behind the podium. The seats and desks were spacious and comfortable and their arrangement fostered communication, eye contact, and discussion. Instead of the entire deliberation team standing or sitting at the front of the room, each approach mini-team would take turns stepping up to the podium while the rest of the team sat and participated with the audience. I really liked this – it seemed professional and made good use of the available space. The approach teams asked good discussion questions and went even further by asking excellent follow-up questions to the discussion questions when the audience seemed a bit stumped. The deliberation teams were very calm and collected and this encouraged the audience to participate freely.

The content of each approach was relevant, insightful, and thought-provoking, and contributed to the larger building of a potential solution. Approach one discussed the subject of sexual assault from the aspect of offenders and how they should be punished and discouraged from perpetrating acts of sexual violence in the first place. Approach two broached the topic of education as a means of ending and preventing sexual violence perhaps in the form of a mandatory course or at least part of a course that would serve to educate students about sexual violence and its consequences. Approach three focused on the prevention of sexual violence on campus — Penn State has policies in place for dealing with sexual assaults after they take place, but none for preventing them.

Each approach did a good job of summarizing what had been suggested and discussed during each approach, and the summary not only recapped the deliberation, but tied it all together and put it towards the invention of a solution to the problem of sexual violence. I was highly impressed by the fluidity of this deliberation and wish it had happened before my own so I could have taken note of some helpful tips including how to moderate, where to situate ourselves, location, and preparedness. They did a good job, and we did too. I am impressed by the outcomes of both this deliberation and my own.