 Good morning My name is Francie Cordova, and I'm the director of the Office of Equal Opportunity and the Chief Compliance Officer for the University of New Mexico. Welcome to UNM. I'd like to start by welcoming our out-of-state guests, and I apologize sincerely that I told you it was 57 degrees here in New Mexico. The weather is fickle in New Mexico, so I apologize. I'd like to welcome our New Mexico sister university attendees and also our special welcome to our military leaders and personnel, especially to Secretary Mowdley. I would also like to recognize a few UNM dignitaries, and there's many here, so I can't mention them all, but I have seen Regent Board Chair, Doug Brown, and I believe Regents Sandra Begay and Melissa Henry are here as well, and of course our President, Garnet A. Stokes. We have a few people out sick, so I'm going to ask them, but our Vice President for HR, Dorothy Anderson, and Vice Chancellor for HSC, Dr. Amy Levi. And then we also have our Associate VP for Student Services, our Dean of Students, our Chief Counsel, our Police Chief, and our Athletics Director, so thank you all for your support. So in April of last year, my colleague and I, Angela Cattina, were invited to attend the first national discussion on sexual assault and sexual harassment at service academies, universities, and colleges, and this was going to be at the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. So when we registered, we, honestly, had a lot of discussions about what the discussion was going to be like, and some of those were, what is this going to be like, and do we have any interest that align with service academies? And are these conversations going to be honest and open? So we attended, and we were incredibly struck by the honest, committed discussions that ensued at that national discussion. Most powerful to me was the intimate stories told by service leaders, by congressional leaders, by university leaders, and by students about their own experiences with sexual harassment and sexual assault, and how it affected their career and education trajectory. When we left the academy, participants signed a statement of future commitment, and there's going to be one in the room right next to us that you can all sign, and we all left knowing that the missions of service academies and universities do align, primarily that we cannot educate and train our future leaders if we do not address the issues of sexual assault and sexual harassment in our institutions. A few months ago, after the national discussion, we learned that our partners at SUNY were going to be hosting the first regional discussion on the east coast, and our SUNY partners are here today, and we were thrilled to learn that we were going to be the second regional discussion. We had been selected for the southwest and west, and this is the conversation you're engaged in today. Similar to service academies and other universities, UNM is cognizant that any instance of sexual assault and sexual harassment takes a toll on our mission, and we're proud that UNM has built capacity to help survivors report and to respond as a university to their needs after. We're grateful to have so many partners in this room, faculty, staff, students, and community members that have supported this commitment, and most importantly, a consistent commitment from our President, Garnett Stokes, to move the needle forward on this issue. I think you will leave the regional discussion today feeling energized and ready to continue this important work, and with that, I would like to introduce to you the Master of Ceremonies for today, Ashley Merriman. Ashley Merriman is the co-author of 2 New Mexico Times Best Sellers, Nurture Shock, New Thinking About Children, and Top Dog, The Science of Winning and Losing. Currently, Ms. Merriman is serving as an advisor to the Department of Navy's Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office. Thank you, Ms. Merriman. Morning, everyone. It is such a huge honor to be here. Thank you so much for letting me grace the stage with these luminous dignitaries. So, first up is Ms. Melissa Cohen, a member of the Senior Executive Service. Ms. Cohen is the Director of the Department of Navy's Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office. In this role, she is the Secretary of the Navy's Principal Advisor on issues relating to sexual assault and sexual harassment. Under her leadership, the Department of the Navy has established new partners with academia, like here in the room, and she's also been guiding the Navy and Marines' development and assessment of intervention programs. She was instrumental in the development of the national and these regional discussions, and I know it's going to be an inspiring day with Ms. Cohen. Thank you. Morning. Good morning. President Stokes, Secretary Modely, distinguished guests from the University of New Mexico, from the Department of Defense. We have ROTC students, staff, and faculty. Canadian Armed Forces representatives are here today, representatives from Capitol Hill, and of course, the many diverse colleges and universities from across the region and around the country. This is an incredible turnout. It is an honor to be here today, so thank you so much. In my office, I have the original statement of commitment document that Dr. Cordova mentioned, where the University of New Mexico, along with other colleges and universities, signed it just less than a year ago and brought the national discussion, and every time I look at that document, I am incredibly inspired. I'm inspired by just the invitation to start a dialogue, can turn into such a meaningful event like today. I'm inspired that a piece of paper can be, can turn into like a loud speaker on this issue to students, to service members, to civilian employees, that together the Department of Defense and educational institutions will be relentless in combating sexual assault and sexual harassment. I'm not sure if you get this question, but sometimes I do, and the questions are, what is the return on investment on an event like today? What's the value? Are we just talking and should we just be past talking at this point? And my response when I get those questions is really twofold. First of all, we cannot afford to stop talking, not when there is need, not when there is still embarrassment and shame, when seeking help, not when there are so many societal and environmental influencers that perpetuate these behaviors. So we have to keep talking and our, these events like this are a unified voice and really underscore the importance of these events and addressing these behaviors. And two, these discussions have impact. For example, and it was referenced earlier, we did, in September, the State University of New York. We were in Manhattan, we were with SUNY, and we left that event with a shared vision. We wanted to look at our data, we wanted to look at our reporting and our survey data and to see if we could get them to be a little more consistent. We wanted to make sure we were as transparent as we could be with our data and look for our strengths and weaknesses to see how we could shape our prevention efforts. You'll hear a little bit more about that progress this morning. And I have no doubt that we're going to do the same today. We're going to find new ways to collaborate. We're going to find ways to effect change. Along the way, I ask that you have a prevention mindset. That's our focus. And to include thinking about ways that you go back to your department, to your academy, to your service, and think about ways you can influence an environment, continue to influence an environment of dignity and respect. We should remember that there's not going to be one silver bullet to prevent sexual assault and sexual harassment and these destructive behaviors. But there are so many elements that we can make progress on. To that end, I want to underscore the importance of networking and getting to know the people in this room. Why? Because many of the answers to the problems we face are found in rooms just like this. There are many subject matter experts in this room. There are innovators. I'm so eager to hear how you exchange ideas on the role of leaders, the role of peers, high standard intervention, building healthy relationships, promoting a positive work environment. That's how we effect change, not in isolation, but together leveraging the passion, the talent, and the commitment that we have here today. And I thank you so very much for participating. Thank you so much. At this time, we're going to have two video messages from our New Mexico representatives of Congress, Representative Holland and Representative Torres Small. Thank you. Good morning, everyone. I'm Deb Holland, Congresswoman for New Mexico's First Congressional District, which is home to UNM. I'm sorry I couldn't be with you today, but I'm sending a warm welcome to all of you. Before I begin, I want to thank Acting Secretary of the Navy, Mr. Mobley, and University of New Mexico's President Stokes for their tremendous effort in making this event possible. I also want to take a moment to thank the panelists and speakers for being here to share your expertise. This is an important issue and one that must be resolved. My staff and I will do our best to assist so we can protect New Mexico families and vulnerable populations while informing good policy moving forward. As a UNM alumni and a New Mexican native, I'm honored to speak with you all today. I want to begin this discussion by highlighting a poll conducted by The Washington Post. The poll was expanded to include interviews of dozens of students that have experienced unwanted sexual contact or faced an attempted assault during their college years. It revealed that adults fear being stigmatized and that survivors are often left feeling traumatized and alone. More than one in three women and one in four men experience sexual violence involving physical contact at some point in their lives and 21% of transgender, genderqueer, and non-conforming college students have been sexually assaulted. And American Indians are twice as likely to experience a rape or sexual assault compared to all other groups. These numbers should alarm everyone. I commend the University of New Mexico for making sexual assault prevention a huge priority. By implementing the gray area, nearly 37,000 students received in-person sexual misconduct awareness training. These students learned about healthy relationships, intervention, reporting procedures, and follow-on care, attributing to a growing culture of mutual respect, dignity, and a safe place to learn and socialize. The Navy has also set a great example of building coalitions around sexual assault prevention, showing commitment and leveraging the strengths that come from diverse information sharing. And like UNM, the Navy also practices a zero-tolerance policy. This policy is reinforced by family support centers, improved training and personnel management processes, and aggressively targeting the stigma and barriers that prevent people from seeking help following a sexual assault. Don't let up now. Continue to listen and advocate, and remain committed to educating students and staff, raise awareness, and regularly take a hard look at ourselves to understand where and how we can refine our processes and personal actions. Please join me in pledging to never remain silent about sexual violence. Today's event is a testament to the dedication and effort of the staff, students, and community at large. We've come a long way, and I'm truly honored to serve you and be a champion for this movement. And to the students, parents, staff, and other participants here today, my hope is that this event will give you the tools to spread awareness and promote positive change in our communities. By working together to address sexual assault, our communities will grow safer and more inclusive. Hi, I'm Congresswoman Sochil Torres-Small, proudly representing New Mexico's Second Congressional District. As a member of Congress, I'm often faced with tough statistics about the state of New Mexico and our country overall. But a few stats should alarm us all. According to a 2015 Association of American University's Campus Climate Survey, almost one in four women and more than 5% of men reported some form of sexual violence during their undergraduate studies. In service academies, the Pentagon reported between 46 to 56% of women and 11 to 13% of male cadets endured sexual harassment during the 2017-2018 academic year. Students should be able to focus on their studies without the fear that they may fall victim to unwanted sexual violence. These statistics should not only alarm us but also propel us into action. In Congress, I've supported the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act. By reauthorizing VAWA, the House sent a clear message nationwide that our federal government will protect all survivors and condemn domestic and sexual assault offenders. As leaders on your campus, you also play an important role in helping shape culture of respect, support and safety. You each can be part of the cultural shift needed to make sure all campus community members are treated with respect. And leadership is not only modeling good behavior but having the courage to call out others, even our friends, when they make comments or take action that you know in your heart is unacceptable. I am confident that by working together we can reduce the high rates of sexual violence among college-aid students, because the statistics I mentioned earlier are more than numbers in a report or a survey. They are our friends, family, classmates and members of our communities. We can create a culture where no one needs to feel unsafe during a time when they should be able to focus on building a future. It just takes the courage to show others around us that change is possible. It begins with each of us. Thank you. A terrific way to begin the morning with engaged leadership. And speaking of engaged leadership, it is now my honor to introduce the hosts for today's event. Garnet S. Stokes is the proud to serve as the 23rd president of the University of New Mexico, the first woman to hold those posts in the university's 130-year history. Our first-generation college graduate, Stokes earned her BA in Psychology from Carson Newman College in Jefferson City, Tennessee, and MS and PhD degrees from the University of Georgia in Industrial and Organizational Psychology. For nearly three decades, she served as a professor in psychology at the University of Georgia, and then seven years as dean at the UGA Franklin College of Arts and Sciences. From 2011 to 2015, she served as provost for the Florida State University, where she spent several months as the university's interim president. From 2015 to 2018, she served as provost and executive vice chancellor for academic affairs at the University of Missouri. She was named president of the UNM in May 2018. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome President Stokes. Good morning, everyone. It's a great day, and it's great to see so many people here engaged in this conversation. It is my great privilege to welcome you to the University of New Mexico and to the city of Albuquerque for what is truly a vital conversation for all of us. I also want to welcome you to the ancestral home of some of New Mexico's indigenous people, as our university is located on lands that once belonged to the Sandia and Isleta Pueblos. We're proud to acknowledge that unique part of UNM's history. It's an honor to have been selected as the location for the second regional discussion on sexual assault and the harassment at our colleges and universities and service academies. As you know, this is a matter we take very seriously at the University of New Mexico. We have recently and successfully completed a three-year formal agreement with the Department of Justice to proactively examine our efforts to prevent and address sexual misconduct, and to provide clear and consistent policies and procedures for reporting, investigating, and responding to any such conduct. In fact, we've gone well above and beyond the recommendations and legal requirements of the agreement, making us what I believe is a role model for how universities, colleges, and service academies can take on these critical challenges. You should also know that UNM has a commitment to our military veterans that sets it apart from many other universities, a commitment, I think, that also makes us an ideal host for this particular regional discussion. Military service academies and universities are helping to create not only educated and informed citizens, but also the leaders we need, now more than ever, to guide and protect our nation, both now and in the future. As someone who was raised in a military family with a husband in the military, with nephews, military, at all generations, it seems, I've seen up close and personally the unique challenges that military service and our veterans can face when they get into a university setting, challenges that our service academies also prepare them for every single day. Here at UNM, we've implemented campus-wide green zone training to give our faculty and staff a better understanding of the experience of veterans and service members and their families while they're here in our classrooms and on our campus. These are the kinds of training opportunities we're integrating across our campus to ensure the kind of seamless and streamlined accountability our faculty, staff, students, and community at large demand and deserve. And so we're grateful that the Navy has linked arms with UNM to create a place where we can all share best practices, share our experiences, and synchronize our data in the name of our shared goal, the reduction and ultimately complete prevention of sexual misconduct and violence. This room is filled with some of our best minds and smartest leaders and I'm looking forward to spending the day listening to and learning from everyone who is here. Thank you again for being here with us, for being in this really critical conversation, for our university, for our region, for the country. It is now my pleasure to turn the floor over to the Secretary of the Navy, Thomas B. Mowdley. Mr. Secretary, welcome to the stage. Good morning, everybody. How's everyone doing this morning? Good, hope so. I want to start with a story and it's a story I told last week at UTEP. I tell it various times and I figure, well, you know, one of the odds that someone was there last week is actually here today. Oh, can anyone, you guys can't hear me? Is that better? Let me take it off. So I was at UTEP last week and I gave a speech and a story I like to tell and I thought, you know, that'd be a good story to kick it off here today. And then I thought, well, you know, what are the odds that someone who was at that speech at UTEP is here today and we'll have to hear this story again. Sure enough, someone came up to me and said, oh, I heard your speech at UTEP last week. So I apologize. You're going to hear this story again. But, you know, it is a really good story, isn't it? Yes. Okay. So I'll start off with it. And it's kind of hard to tell the story and not come across as a little bit pretentious. So just so bear with me. This is absolutely true story. So I'm having dinner with Tom Cruz. I was in San Diego. He was there filming Top Gun 2. And I got invited to dinner with him and his sister and a couple other people from the production crew. And sitting across the table for me and I'm talking to him. And I say, you know, Tom, I call him Tom now, because we have dinner together. But I said my son is an F-16 pilot in the Air Force. And he grew up in Annapolis. I was a Navy pilot myself. I took him to the Blue Angels as a young child. And I said, but I bet you that the reason he's a fighter pilot today has a lot more to do with your movie Top Gun than anything that I ever did to influence him. So I figured Tom Cruz would look across the table and say, well, you know, sir, he calls me sir. Your wife and your wife and you probably raised him right, taught him about patriotism, all this kind of thing. But instead, he looks over at me and goes, you know, you're probably right. But those of us who have served in the military, and this is just a shout out to the folks that are here both in the ROTC unit and active duty people, the truth is that somewhere at some point in your life, someone convinced you, whether it was a parent or a friend or a mentor or teacher, that service in the U.S. military was an honorable thing to do because the country's good and it's worth defending. So I just want to thank you for making that leap, all those folks that are here, particularly the ones that are just starting their careers. But also, I'm sure every single person in this room knows somebody who's in the military. And at some point in their lives, you encourage them to serve. And we can't lose that. And I'm looking at statistics recently that show back in 1990 when I got out of the military back in the last century, that age demographic from 18 to 27 year olds in the United States had 40% of those people had a parent that had served in the military. Now it's only 5%. So the connection that we have as a population to our military, to our armed forces is getting more distant. And I don't think that's good for the country. So I'm very encouraged by events like this because we all are facing a lot of similar challenges with our youth, people who are just learning how to be mature adults. And we have those problems and they cross across our society. We see this in suicide rates, all kinds of things that are cultural issues that we have to address together. So the other thing I want to say, because we've got some Canadian colleagues here, where are the Canadians? Oh, you didn't think I was going to call you out today, but my last job before I took this job, I was the global defense leader for PricewaterhouseCoopers. And I used to go all around the world looking at different defense establishments and trying to bring lessons learned back to our clients here in the U.S. and clients globally. And you always get this question, what can we learn from a nation that spends one-tenth or one-one-hundredth of the amount of money we spend on defense? And we can learn a lot. We can learn a lot about how other countries make do with a lot less money than we have and how they deal with cultural issues like we're dealing with. So whenever I see the Canadians, this is one of the things I learned about the Canadians. If you ever want to understand how a nation loves its country, how people love its country, go to a Canadian hockey game, NHL game. And you don't even have to watch the game. Just go and stay for the national anthem and watch the way the fans react to that song. It's really, really inspiring to see it. And so I think we can learn a lot from a lot of different people, a lot of different countries. When I talk to the Navy about the things, the kind of values that we need to be pushing in our Navy, I talk about this concept of agility. And agility has a lot of different characteristics to it, but that I've come up with over the years. I mean, they're not exclusive, but they're things that I think about. And two of them are humility and the other one is skepticism. And those are pretty good American characteristics. We tend to be sort of humble and assuming people for the most part, and we're very skeptical about things. We don't take things at face value. And this is one of those challenges that we have to really pull those types of characteristics into our approach to the problem. And I will tell you, from personal experience, I went to the Naval Academy from 1979 to 1983. When I came in in 1979, we were the first class to have women as first classmen. The first Plebe summer run by women at the Naval Academy. And my class of women, class of 83, I think we started with about, I told this story last night too, so I apologize again for repeating myself, but most of you weren't there. But we started out with about 100 women in my class, and I think we graduated something in the 30s because of how difficult the circumstances were for them. At that stage of the game, they were not really accepted as part of the team, as part of that common culture at the academy. So those women that graduated, I have tremendous amount of respect for the women that graduated in my class to have sort of made it through that gauntlet where conversations like this that we're having weren't being held at all. And when I had the fortunate opportunity to step out of the Navy for 30 years and then come back in and I see the differences now, it makes it it's encouraging because we get after problems. It takes time for us to get after problems, but the difference now is tremendous. I was on an aircraft carrier last week, our brand new aircraft carrier, the USS Ford. And I went down into the nuclear power plant of that carrier. And it is the most advanced nuclear power plant, the most efficient nuclear power plant in the world. And it's out there on the ocean traveling around at 35 knots. And I walked down into the engine room and the person in charge was a woman commander. And 30 years ago, people would have been looking at her with very different eyes than they are today. She is now the authority figure down there. And that takes time. And so when we think about how long these processes take, we should be very proud of how much progress we have made in the country in a lot of a lot of ways. We're now measuring these things. We're understanding the depth of the problems. And we're getting after the problem. So I'm convinced that with efforts like this, over time, this problem will get better. It will get better. So one final thought, one final story I'll leave with you to think about. I was reading a story about Malta in World War II, 1942. Malta is an island in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea. And it was a critical base for the British and keeping the Germans and the Nazis and the Italians at bay in northern Africa. So the Germans decided they were going to basically destroy this entire island. And they dropped more bombs on Malta in a two or three month period than they did on all of England during the entire Battle of Britain. The island became very isolated. They had no fuel. They had no food. They were down to six ounces of food rations per person per week on Malta. And if Malta fell, the ability for the allies to come in and get the Germans and the Italians out of North Africa were going to be thrown back by at least five years. So the British decided they were going to do a resupply convoy to Malta. And so they assembled something like 40 ships that left, maybe more, left England, a couple of aircraft carriers, six or seven destroyers, 12 cruisers, and about 12 supply ships. And one of these supply ships had the most important commodity, the most precious cargo that Malta needed, and that was oil, to maintain power on the island and keep the heat and all that going on the island. They get attacked relentlessly on the way down. When they get down there, more than half of the ships were sunk. A thousand people died trying to reach Malta. And that one critical supply ship, the SS Ohio, I know this because I'm from Ohio, the SS Ohio was struck several times and was starting to sink. Two destroyers also were struck. They decided to saddle up next to the SS Ohio and get it into Malta safely. And that one resupply mission saved Malta at great risk to those two destroyers. Those two destroyers basically, because the ship was listing so much, they were coming in like this, coming in. It's a really good analogy for what people can do to help in with solving this problem. I heard, we heard today about how victims are still very reticent to come forward because they don't feel it's safe, they feel ashamed. We have to reinforce with everybody that you have to saddle up to people like that regardless of the risk to yourself, to your career, to how you're perceived by your peers. You have to saddle up to people like that who are hurting because you never know what precious cargo is inside that person that's going to survive and change the world. So how do we find those people to do that? Look below the horizon. Find the young people. They're the ones that are going to sustain this effort beyond the time that we're here. So with that, thank you so much for having me here. Thanks for the great support from universities. Our service academies really, really treasure the interaction with other universities. We want to be part of this solution. We know we're part of the problem and we want to be part of this solution. And so thank you so much for everything you do. Thanks. Thank you, President Stokes and the Secretary. Another round of applause.