One in three women nationwide say they've been in an abusive dating relationship while in college.
With that in mind, the Connecticut Coalition Against Domestic Violence, the Injury Prevention Center at Connecticut Children's Medical Center, and Hartford Hospital have released a report examining what policies exist at state colleges and universities to address the problem.
Eighty-eight percent of the state's 25 colleges and universities participated in the assessment. Dr. Rebecca Beebe, a research scientist for the hospitals, said schools need to increase awareness of their policies among students and staff.
"We took their answers," Beebe said, "and reviewed them with each university or college's particular policies itself. As it was written, there were a lot of mismatched answers, or just wrong answers. We had one reporter get almost every single question about their policy wrong. That makes it feel like people don't know or don't care about the policies around intimate partner violence which is extremely dangerous and problematic."
Among the report's recommendations is having all colleges define dating violence and establishing a zero-tolerance policy.
