In order to register for classes in the fall, all Oklahoma State students will have to take an online course of sexual assault and harassment. This course will reportedly cost approximately $45,000 to implement in the first year, and continue to cost somewhat less than that every year after.

Kaitlyn Schallhorn at Campus Reform has the story:

Sexual assault course now mandatory at Oklahoma State

Oklahoma State University—one of 71 schools currently under a Title IX investigation by the federal government—is requiring all students to take a course on sexual violence and harassment.

In a recent email to all undergraduate and graduate students, OSU mandates that all students must take the 40-minute online course in order to register for classes.

Under OSU’s “alcohol education,” the sexual assault course will include confidential surveys “to help personalize [students’] experience and measure students’ attitudes and behaviors.” The course website says the school will only be able to receive the survey information about the student body as a whole and “will never see individual responses.”

Carrie Hulsey-Greene, a university spokesperson, told Campus Reform in an interview that the school will use the analytics compiled through the course to use in tweaking its approach to students in future years concerning sexual assaults.

The online course, which tackles a variety of scenarios from house parties to stalking to dating abuse, does have a final exam, but it is ungraded.

“[The final exam] is more about making sure students are understanding the statistics,” Hulsey-Greene said.

OSU student Nadir Nibras pushed legislation through the student government in April and started a coalition of students—One Is Too Many: OSU Alliance—to push the idea for a mandatory sexual assault course to the school’s administration.

“[S]tudents need to learn to promote a culture where sexist attitudes, violence and victim-blaming is not tolerated,” Nibras, president of a men’s advocacy group on campus to prevent sexual assault,wrote in an op-ed for the school newspaper at the time.

According to Hulsey-Greene, while OSU did push sexual assault prevention training in previous years through orientation and resident life, there was no surefire way to ensure that “every student had been exposed to proper education and training in sexual assault prevention.”

“I see a need for [this mandatory course] at all universities across the country,” she said.