Hero Story

I am very proud to submit the staff and student team in the Prevention, Outreach and Education (POE) Department at Michigan State University as Michigan Heroes.

POE has forever changed the conversation around relationship violence and sexual misconduct across the university and beyond. What started in 2008 as a single full-time staff position, POE has become an innovative force of 13 full-time staff members and over 80 peer educators.

Led by executive director, Kelly Schweda, POE evolved into a full department in 2018 during an institutional tragedy. The Prevention, Outreach and Education Department has built a dynamic team to change the tides and respond to this critical need for sexual assault and relationship violence prevention across the campus and throughout the community.

The POE department has focused on impacting the community in a profound way to become the largest prevention department in the Big Ten University Network. Each day, the staff and student peer educators embark on a journey of challenging social norms, empowering and educating our community to be active bystanders and supportive allies in ending gender-based violence.

What makes the POE department worthy of the honor of being a Michigan Hero is the dedication of its staff to the overall mission of “Empowering community commitment to prevent gender-based violence through education, outreach and social change.” Not only are they educating the MSU community, but they are sending ripples of education and thought-provoking information throughout the communities from where students, faculty and staff emerge. POE is empowering them to be change agents in their own communities and thereby disrupting the status quo of violence norms.

In very tangible ways, POE serves the community and empowers positive impact through:
- Impacting several thousand students through trainings. These workshops include incoming student education, active bystander education, training specifically for fraternity and sorority students, training required for all student-athletes, and training focused specifically on the needs of communities, such as international and LGBTQIA+ students.
- Providing educational opportunities for faculty, staff, graduate students and postdoctoral students. These initiatives include online education, specialized “on-demand” workshops and an annual summit titled “Navigating Change: Building our Future Together” which was designed to deepen the learning around gender-based violence and the collective responsibility for culture change.
- Connecting with students through a new council called “Student Voices for Prevention Initiatives” which serves as a platform and mechanism for continuous undergraduate student feedback regarding gender-based violence prevention initiatives at MSU.
- The creation of a “Climate and Response” unit inside the POE department to respond and support units that have been impacted by gender-based violence or harassment. This unit provides coaching and consultation with MSU’s leaders (deans, directors, chairs and executive management) to ensure culture change is happening at every tier at MSU.
- Training over 64,000 individuals in the last academic year on how to support survivors, understand the dynamics of sexual assault and relationship violence, as well as how to intervene when someone witnesses violent or harassing behavior.
- Engaging others outside of the campus community. When students graduate, they become members of thousands of communities. When we have advocates for change in all sectors of business, non-profits, higher education institutions it can result in--and has resulted in--a global impact.

The Prevention, Outreach and Education team is both creative and devoted to impacting the campus and community in positive and proactive ways. Their focus is on preventing harm from occurring, helping people to know what resources are available, how to support survivors, how to recognize signs of gender-based violence and ways to offer support, how to demonstrate that we as a community want a different world – one that is free from gender-based violence and all forms of oppression. POE believes our society is at the precipice of meaningful change and through their efforts, all of us at MSU and in the greater community are able to continue to learn and grow. Their staff and peer educators are Michigan Heroes.