On the heels of an investigation by the U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights, which revealed MSU had mishandled multiple cases of sexual assault, and a survey conducted by the Association of American Universities, which found many cases to be occurring on campus, MSU is working to address sexual assault and relationship violence issues on campus and off. 

More than 150,000 students at 27 universities in the U.S. participated in the AAU's campus climate survey on sexual assault and misconduct. It should be noted the survey has faced criticism due to the fact that it was voluntary and had relatively low response rate. The survey was offered to about 780,000 students, making the response rate about 19 percent.

According to the survey, 5.7 percent of students view sexual assault or misconduct as an extreme problem at MSU compared to seven percent at the University of Michigan, 12.6 percent at Ohio State University, 2.6 percent at Purdue University and 5.7 percent at the University of Wisconsin.

The survey also found relatively low rates of reporting, ranging from five to 28 percent depending on the behavior. The university's President Lou Anna K. Simon said MSU is working to increase those rates of reporting. 

The university is working on ways to make students more aware of resources available, such as the Office for Inclusion and Intercultural Initiatives and the Title IX Coordinator. 

According to an investigation by the U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights, only 7.4 percent of MSU students were able to correctly identify the name of the University’s Title IX Coordinator, while 71.5 percent of students surveyed correctly identified Tom Izzo as the head basketball coach.

"It was kind of an unusual comparison between someone who has kind of a high profile status as Tom Izzo and a university Title IX Coordinator that you would not necessarily typically think about unless you have a particular concern that falls within the scope of the responsibility of the Title IX Coordinator," Paulette Granberry Russell, Title IX Coordinator for MSU, said. 

"It does mean that there's more we can do to help students understand the role of the Title IX Coordinator and the fact that Paulette Granberry Russel is the Title IX Coordinator for Michigan State."

Granberry Russell said this effort has been ongoing since the Office for Civil Rights' investigation began, and has included putting information about Title IX and the coordinator in required online learning about sexual assault and misconduct. Similar information has been made available through MSU's Sexual Assault and Relationship Violence Prevention program. A larger effort to address issues of sexual assault has also been on-going, Granberry Russell said. 

"Some of the expectations by OCR are not particularly burdensome because it's work that we've already begun years ago, but of course we are going to make the changes in policies and procedures that they require," Granberry Russell said. "We will of course continue to do climate assessments, which is what they've asked us to do."

Some of the work already completed includes adding staff to the Sexual Assault Program and the creation of the Office of Institutional Equity, which from April to Aug. 28, 2015 had completed 42 formal investigations and 78 informal contacts with claimants. 

"We are going to continue to assess what our needs are, whether that's our staffing needs, our educational needs, climate assessment needs," Granberry Russell said. "All of those will be worked on and we are going to do it using information we will receive from what will be the sexual violence advisory council that will be constituted very shortly."