In her first sit down interview, exclusive to 10TV, Hocking College President Dr. Betty Young said the students on her campus are the number one priority.
“The college’s number one priority is that all of our students are safe, every day, here on this campus,” she said. “We’re going to do everything we can to make sure that happens.”
Dr. Young said she first became aware of a sexual assault investigation on September 1 after a police report was filed. She said she immediately took action.
“We wanted to be sure that there was not so much as even a hint or appearance of any impropriety or conflict of interest,” she said.
She says the school’s football coach, who is also the college’s police chief is not involved in the investigation. 10TV learned the alleged incident involved three football players.
Talking with students on campus, Tuesday, some say they were upset the school didn’t send out a notice to the student body concerning the investigation.
“What was presented to me was that there was no pending threat to any of our students and as a result of that, then the college did not do an alert,” Dr. Young said.
10TV became aware of a possible investigation on September 1. Our station asked for the police report on September 2 and again on September 3 and was told by college spokesman, Mike Brown, there was no report to give.
“I can’t speak for Mike,” Dr. Young said.
Dr. Young said the school will be sending out a notice to the student body Wednesday evening to hopefully eliminate any lingering fear.
“We had no reason to believe that there’s any immediate threat to our students then or now and we want to make sure everybody knows that,” she said.
As for the investigation, Dr. Young said it continues both at the county level and with the Title IX hearing, internally, to determine if anyone might have violated the school’s code of conduct.
Dr. Young also said training classes have been and continue to be available to students about sexual assault.
“Can we do more? No doubt in my mind that we all on our college campuses all across this country have to do more,” Dr. Young said.