Sexual assault reported at Penn State residence hall, university issues ‘timely warning’

Bret Pallotto
·2 min read

A sexual assault at a University Park residence hall was reported early Monday morning to Penn State.

Penn State issued a “timely warning” notification to the university community, which is required by the Clery Act when certain conditions are met. It’s the first such warning issued by the university since November.

A Penn State student said they were sexually assaulted about 1 a.m. Sunday at an unnamed on-campus residence hall on the southern portion of campus, according to the warning. It did not offer a description of the suspect.

According to the warning, it can be “assumed that conditions continue to exist that may pose a threat to members and guests of the university community.”

Undergraduate students do not trust their university to take reports of sexual misconduct seriously — nor provide supportive accommodations, nor handle reports fairly — according to the results of a universitywide survey released in April 2023.

According to University Park’s 2022 Sexual Misconduct Climate Survey, only 42.9% of female undergrads — and 24.6% of gender-diverse undergrads — believed Penn State would take a report of sexual misconduct seriously. That was a significant drop from 2018, when 62.9% of female undergrads answered in the affirmative and from 2015, when 72.8% said the same.

A university spokesperson said at the time that the survey data showed results similar to institutions nationwide, but described the findings as “troubling.”

Resources

There are more than a dozen resources available to Penn State students and others in Centre County, both on-campus and off-campus.

On-campus

Off-campus

Centre Daily Times reporter Josh Moyer contributed to this article.