By MARTY LEVINE

Editor’s note: The University Times is writing a series on the most recent winners of the Chancellor’s Distinguished Service Award for Staff. This is the fifth and final installment.

Student Impact Award winner: Carrie Benson, director of sexual violence prevention and education, Office of Institutional Engagement and Wellbeing

“We have worked really hard, all of us, to build a positive community that promotes healing and education,” says Carrie Benson about her work with her colleagues, and about the students they serve. “We’re OK that healing can be messy, that we can laugh at one time and cry at another, that it is a safe space and people come as they are. We’re going to focus on their healing journey and where they are.”

Benson has worked at Pitt for nearly 11 years, the first five in the Title IX office, which does direct response work to allegations of sexual harassment or violence. Her current office, dedicated to preventing those cases, has seen a “significant scale up,” Benson says, over the last half decade.

Among their efforts has been the training of 25 undergraduate peer educators focused on consent and healthy relationships. Her office designs educational materials and does outreach, including workshops, throughout the year. Her team also employs confidential advocates to support anyone affected by sexual misconduct and partners with Pittsburgh Action Against Rape to connect students to PAAR advocates, who counsel survivors and their support teams.

Benson says her office team is “always recognizing that there is more to be done,” although she has been very glad in recent years to find a better atmosphere on campus and to “see students talking more about what a safe and healthy relationship looks like for them,” as well as taking advantage of more of her office’s resources.

She feels “really lucky” to have been recognized by the Chancellor’s Award, she says: “The fact that it was in the student impact category was very special to me. Our students are why I am here.

“This is very much more than a job to me — it feels like a second home to me,” she adds, especially as a Pitt alumna. “I’ve watched students who have experienced sexual violence. I’ve watched them heal and sometimes get involved in the work, so what happened to them doesn’t happen to others.

“The award is very meaningful but it is also a recognition of all of the work that all of the professional staff does on this floor.”

Marty Levine is a staff writer for the University Times. Reach him at martyl@pitt.edu or 412-758-4859.

Have a story idea or news to share? Share it with the University Times.

Follow the University Times on Facebook.