Nancy Leonard Interviews Jennifer Wenderoth-Holster - Part 1
This month is Sexual Assault Awareness month and I wanted to do something special for our community. I am pleased to introduce journalist Nancy Leonard who is in the process of doing a series of interview with one of our Advisors, Jennifer Wenderoth-Holster. Jennifer has spent the last 8 years working in the field of victims’ rights where she specializes in sexual violence, domestic violence, and stalking. Jennifer has given testimony on 6 bills that are current laws and holds specialized crisis counseling certifications in the area of Sexual Assault and Domestic Violence. Jennifer’s organization, Let It Be Heard, offers education and prevention programing along with motivational speaking engagements. You can read more about her work in this field on our “About” page under “Our Team.”
The assault happened when she was a high school senior, visiting a college campus where she had applied.
“I didn’t realize how that night, those situations, change reality for you. You don’t realize how traumatizing it is.”
As a victim’s advocate for 8 years, Jennifer now understands how the events of that night changed her, ultimately leading to her career and to becoming an advisor on the film About That Night. Jennifer was lucky. She had the full support of her parents. She finished senior year and, with great hesitation, she started college.
“That semester was horrible. I couldn’t concentrate because I didn’t know if he was still on that campus - the school didn’t keep me up to date. I think that not knowing, and that fear of seeing him, was a big issue. It really, really took a toll.”
When she returned to campus, she got a job at the Women’s Center.
“We heard about the cases at the school, including the sexual assaults, and how the school really wasn’t doing anything. And that’s really where the fire kind of lit up in me.”
And then it happened again.
“In my sophomore year, I had gone out to a party and I had been drinking. It was Cinco de Mayo. I had a designated driver and I was safe with my friends. I came back to my dorm and there was a group of girls on the wing who are all partying. So me and my roommate were talking to these two guys and we were just talking. I passed out, and I woke up later that night to being raped. “
Jennifer confronted her roommate the next morning, who said that she had not wanted to make the boys walk back to their rooms across campus.
Jennifer talked to her mother, who knew something was wrong and appeared at her door an hour later. Her mother helped her think through what she wanted to do, and Jennifer decided to talk to her boss, the head of the Women’s Center. The director asked her what she would tell a young woman who came to her at the Women’s Center?
“I’d tell them to get a rape kit. She left it to me to make the decision, and I went to the hospital for the rape kit.”
In some ways, the worst was yet to come. Even though she was working at Student Services with women who had been sexually assaulted, Jennifer had not thoroughly digested the fact that she was now one of them and needed to think about every action she took. When she returned to her dorm from the hospital, she told her RA (Resident Advisor), a friend, what had happened.
“And that was the biggest mistake because as an RA she had to tell the dorm director, who then had to pull in the head of housing, who then pulled in the police, and here I am, in the middle of the night, sitting in the dorm director’s house on campus and being forced to tell my situation. I hadn’t wanted to go to the police. I had written on my rape kit, I put Jane Doe. I wasn’t ready.”
“So it was completely taken away from me, and I ended up leaving campus after that, I just walked off. I didn’t go back that semester. And when I did finally (go back), the whole case of my whole sexual assault just got even worse. “
“When I went back, we’re just hearing more and more cases at the Women’s Center about college sexual assault, and how it was swept under the rug. And I remember sitting in my sociology class and some of my friends come in late and they put the school newspaper down on my desk.”
“I started crying in class. In the paper there was an article called, A rape only hurts if you fight it. It said: ‘It’s so wonderful. A magical experience that needs to happen to everybody at least once.’ It was supposed to be this funny satirical piece! And that’s when the fire really started in me!”
After that, there were rallies and protests on campus, a flood of news media, a community forum with the writer of the news piece, sit-ins aimed at changing policies – all sorts of activism.
“So that’s where it really started, the fire of my own experience and seeing how horrible the college campus handles sexual assault. It’s just so traumatizing for victims. I knew I wanted to be a sexual assault victim advocate!”
Next month: Where her fire and activism have led Jennifer.