Officials said they plan to update the Title IX Office’s peer adviser program over the summer to include more peer education opportunities and reflect the new Office of Equal Opportunity’s scope after few students chose to pair with an adviser during the program’s inaugural year. 

The peer adviser program, which began its pilot year in spring 2025, allows students undergoing Title IX processes to select a peer adviser from a pool of trained student and alumni volunteers who can provide emotional support and discuss Title IX Office resources. Current advisers said the program has experienced low demand in its first year, which has led them to hope to pivot toward educating students about Title IX resources and increasing attentiveness to sexual violence prevention around campus in addition to directly involving advisers in the conduct process, a plan a University spokesperson said officials are engaging advisers to implement.

The Title IX Office and the Student Government Association selected 11 volunteer advisers in fall 2024 to launch the peer adviser program in spring 2025 under the assumption students may feel more comfortable having a peer guide them through Title IX processes as opposed to friends or staff members. A University spokesperson said Title IX Office staff and returning program volunteers interviewed new volunteer candidates at the end of 2025 and selected five new students, who joined five returning advisers, in January 2026.

Former SGA executive staff and Title IX Office staff jointly developed the idea for the program in 2024, and the SGA sat on the original panel to select advisers, but current SGA President MJ Childs said he has not discussed the program with the Title IX Office yet. 

Peer advisers can help students submit Title IX reports, access resources and assist them in their requests for supportive measures — including requests for academic support or no-contact orders — or negotiated or investigative resolutions, after attending a daylong training session at the beginning of the semester, according to the program’s website.

Jaiden Bluth, a masters of public health candidate who has worked with one advisee since joining the program in spring 2025, said her role has been less “hands-on” than she expected because of students’ low demand for advisers. 

“I thought that I would have maybe multiple advisees at once, and so it makes me happy if there aren’t that many people who are going through the Title IX process,” Bluth said. “However, I hope it’s not a thing of people who are going through the Title IX process just don’t reach out for peer support.”

The Title IX Office received 494 complaints during the 2024-25 reporting period — a 21 percent increase from the previous year — and the highest recorded number since GW began publishing annual reports in 2022. The Title IX Office follows up with all reports, and in 160 of the 494 cases, reporters requested support or a resolution, a 16.7 percent increase from the previous year.

The office also released its 2024 Sexual Harassment Climate Survey Report, which found 25 percent of the 6,000 students surveyed said they did not understand GW’s Title IX procedures, while 22 percent said they did not have faith in them.

Bluth said having the program host more tabling events for advisers to inform students of sexual violence on college campuses could make students more attentive to the topic because students tend to listen to other students more than staff. She said students often dismiss education on sexual violence because they feel it is not relevant to them, but she said reducing the high frequency of sexual violence on college campuses requires more student engagement.

“You can cater the information more towards real-life stories that feel less dramatized and more like, ‘Okay, this could actually happen. Maybe I should listen,’” Bluth said.

A University spokesperson said the program expanded in spring 2026 to include four additional professional development sessions for advisers to continue training, as well as monthly office hours and a self-care night where students could participate in arts and crafts with peer advisers in efforts to increase students’ engagement with the program after low advisee turnout in 2025. Volunteers said, however, they did not notice an increase in advisees in 2026.

Volunteers and a University spokesperson attributed the low number of advisees to students’ lack of awareness about the program and preference for having friends, family or staff help them through the process, instead of students who they don’t know.

The Title IX Office became part of the newly formed Office of Equal Opportunity on May 1 after GW dissolved the Office of Diversity, Equity and Community Engagement, which previously housed the office. A University spokesperson said having Title IX under a centralized office handling all discrimination and harassment will increase GW’s capacity to provide support for students undergoing the reporting process and advisers seeking to increase training and prevention education. 

“OEO will use the summer to solidify what the new aspects of the program will look like, but anticipate increased capacity for things like tabling across campus and hosting,” the spokesperson said.

Lucy Eckel, a rising senior studying political communications and human services and social justice who has not worked with an advisee since joining in spring 2025, said the program should shift to allow advisers channel their existing passion about sexual violence prevention into becoming Title IX “ambassadors,” proactively educating students alongside their existing supportive role.

Eckel said volunteers and staff have discussed whether broader peer education would become a main focus of the program — as the program is currently primarily structured for advisers to interact with advisees who select them — or an optional opportunity.

“While it might not be the initial purpose that people got involved with, I do think that it still is super relevant work and is helping create the culture of consent that we’re all trying to work towards,” Eckel said.

Brianna Santoro, a rising senior studying cellular biology who has worked with one advisee since joining in spring 2025, said the OEO is considering having peer advisers host educational training for the student body, like the existing required Title IX training for incoming undergraduate students and student group-requested training sessions.

Santoro said, as president of It’s On Us GW, the local chapter of a national organization raising awareness about sexual violence prevention, tabling and panels her organization has conducted have helped remove stigma around discussing sexual violence this year, and suggested the peer adviser program also shift to hosting more events.

“I know that at least within my own connections on campus, I’ve gotten a lot more of my community and people in my organizations to be a lot more aware of the topic just by going out and giving trainings and making the subject something that’s more normalized,” Santoro said.

Diya Jhawar contributed reporting.