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THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
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MONDAY, JAN. 18, 2016 | VOLUME 131 ISSUE 1
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While marriage age is trending upwards, some people still opt to marry younger
HIGHER GPA FOR SCHOLARSHIPS.
New scholarship requirements at the University may make it more difficult for students to keep their financial aid.
News >> PAGE 3A
Rachel and Ben Guver spent two and a half years in a long-distance relationship before getting married.
KU VS. TCU RECAP. Freshmen players Chieck Diallo and Carlton Bragg Jr. were the key in the Jayhawks' defeat of the Horned Frogs on Saturday afternoon. Sports >> 10A
CHRISTIAN HARDY/
KANSAN
JUSTINKC. Former KU basketball player Justin Wesley talks about his experience in the fashion industry.
Arts & Culture>> 5A
CONTRIBUTED
MORE INSIDE:
THE BACK-TO-
SCHOOL ISSUE
COURTNEY VARNEY/KANSAN
ROCK CHALK INVISIBLE HAWK UPDATE. A timeline of actions taken since Nov. 9 by the student group and its goals for this semester. The group hopes to foster a more diverse and inclusive campus. News>>2B
AP PHOTO
@KANSANNEWS
TARIK BLACK.
Former Jayhawk Tarik Black is growing as a leader in the NBA. Read about his journey from collegiate to professional play.
Sports>> 8B
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ALLISON KITE
@Allie_Kite
While marriage age is trending upwards, some young people still opt for marrying younger
Ben Guver didn't date during his first year of graduate school. He threw himself into his work, studying religion for his master's at Florida State University.
"The thrilling thing about grad school is that you get to throw yourself into this thing you love doing without all those gen ed and other elective requirements, and you're doing it at a really high level," Ben said.
When he later met his now-wife Rachel, he was nearly out the door of his program. When he left to pursue his Ph.D. at the University of Kansas, Rachel still had a year of her undergraduate degree left in Florida. They had been dating for about eight months. They would then spend two and a half years in a long-distance relationship.
"I promised myself I would never move anywhere for
anybody but me," Rachei said about the time she and Ben spent in a long-distance relationship. "I had friends who moved to places for relationships and had that not really work out so great, so I wanted to be in a position where I was a bit more independent before making a decision like moving half-way across the country."
Young people are continuing to put off marriage and place larger emphasis on completing degrees, establishing careers and making the best of their 20s. Those modern priorities are driving the average age at first marriage up. For some, like Ben and Rachel, that might be the right choice.
Others buck the trend.
While a perfect age isn't an exact science, some data indicates that the ideal time is when the couple is in their late 20s.
Articles bemoaning young marriage tout divorce rates, lost youth and financial struggle. However, the success of a marriage may be more tied to other factors than solely age.
Galena Rhoades, a researcher at the University of Denver who worked on a study sponsored by the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia, said she thought there was a greater connection between premarital decisions and marital quality.
Those who consciously decide to make a commitment have better marriages than those who "slide" into phase after phase of their relationship, she said. Couples who attend premarital workshops or counseling also have better marriages than those who don't.
Before Ben and Rachel got married, she moved to Oregon and then Texas, where she interned on a wildlife reserve. For the months she was working at the reserve, Rachel had no cell phone service. She could only talk to Ben if she went to the community building and talked to him on video chat — or she could drive into town for cell phone reception.
SEE MARRIAGE PAGE 3
Marrying older
Median age at first marriage is on the rise for both males and females
sex
Male Graphic represents the age at which people married for the first time, broken down by sex. People have been waiting longer to get married for the first time since the earlier 20th century, but it is not a significant increase from the late 1800s.
Source: Census Data — Estimated Median Age at First, Marriage, by Sex: 1890 to the Present
Data collected in 1890, 1900, 1910, 1920, 1930, 1940, and 1947 to present.
Graphic by Allison Kite
Sexual Assault Center's new director says she'll focus on prevention methods
LARA KORTE @lara_korte
The University has named Jennifer Brockman as the first director of the new Sexual Assault Prevention and Education Center.
The center was established in October to centralize the University's sexual assault prevention methods. Previously, education and prevention efforts were coming from several different offices, including Public Safety, Student Affairs, Watkins Health Center and the Office of Institutional Opportunity and Access.
Vice Provost of Student Affairs Jane Tuttle said the new center will initiate its own programs as well as help steer other offices to ensure all components are on the same page.
"[Before the center], there [were] no centralized folks, so sometimes our efforts weren't as effective as they could be if
they were coordinating." Tuttle said. "So this is an office that's set up to coordinate those, to collaborate with those, to expand what we do and to do more prevention and education work."
Brockman, who will begin Jan. 20, has a history of tackling sexual assault issues. After getting a bachelor's degree in criminology and sociology with a focus in victimology from Drury University, Brockman went on to get her master's in organizational leadership from Gonzaga University
Tuttle said she believes Brockman is the best person for the director position because of her experience.
Brockman served as a sexual assault prevention educator at the University of Arkansas, and most recently, executive
Step from González University. She has since gone on to work in several sexual assault prevention coalitions in the Midwest.
Brockman said she hopes to bring her experience to the University as it prepares to take on sexual assault.
"I think KU is positioning itself well to really have an intentional approach and effort to curb and eliminate sexual violence on the campus," Brockman said.
"You're high-activist, high-energy, and you've got students who already ready to go," Brockman said.
Brockman said she thinks University students are poised for helping prevent assault.
director of the University of Iowa's Rape Victim Advocacy Program.
The first item on her to-do list is to build trust and cooperation within the community by understanding the culture and the components at work, Brockman said.
"I think the first step is to really understand KU's culture and make myself available and
meet with people in the program," Brockman said, "I think that it's important that I've got an overview."
The University currently offers several options for students who have experienced sexual violence, including off-campus advocates, medical and psychological counselors and resources for filing a complaint and pressing charges.
When it comes to prevention and education programming, Brockman said there's a few ideas she's got in mind. The center's main focus will be prevention work, offender accountability and behavior recidivism work, that is, working to curb patterns of repeating sexual violence.
Brockman also said she looks forward to working with the University to make sure its policies are "reflective of the work and the philosophical standing of the center's charter" as well as developing victim resources.
Brockman said the center will hire two more employees sometime in the spring. She said the hires will be two educators, one focused on male engagement and bystander intervention, and the other on dating and healthy relationships.
Brockman said she hopes that through campus education, survivors will feel more comfortable about receiving help and taking action when it comes to sexual assault.
"We need to be able to promise them we have their back," Brockman said.
Although Brockman said she feels nervous about being the first director of the newly-established center, she's said she's excited to get started.
"There's a lot of unknown, but this is really the opportunity to create something amazing from scratch," Brockman said.
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