Huddled outside Baker Hall on Friday night, a group of about 30 MSU students, faculty and staff lit candles and sang songs at a vigil to support the victims of a series of alleged sexual abuse incidents at Pennsylvania State University.
Although gusting winds and cold temperatures delayed the start of the event, the crowd heard from workers at the MSU Sexual Assault Program and sang verses from “Amazing Grace” while the flames fluttered in the breeze.
The vigil — organized by MSU’s School of Social Work — was one of the first public events held at MSU to recognize the victims from the Penn State scandal.
Jerry Sandusky, Penn State’s former football defensive coordinator, is charged with 40 criminal counts in connection with the alleged sexual abuse of eight boys across a 15-year period.
Sandusky’s arrest led to the eventual firing of PSU President Graham Spanier and football coach Joe Paterno on Nov. 9, after PSU officials said they failed to act when confronted about Sandusky’s behavior.
Leah Tibbets, a social worker at the MSU Sexual Assault Program, delivered an address inside Baker Hall before leading the crowd outside for the vigil. She called the alleged abuses “heinous.”
“I’ve witnessed the impact sexual violence has (on people’s lives),” she told the group. “Our society is unsafe in many ways.”
Problems with abuse are far more widespread than people realize, Tibbets said, and more must be done to prevent future incidents of a similar nature.
Some students were motivated to reach out to the MSU community after learning about Sanduksy’s actions. When social work junior Alexa Thompson — the committee leader of MSU’s Students for Social Work group — first saw TV reports from Penn State, her mind immediately jumped to the victims.
“My initial thought was devastation,” she said. “When you hear stories like this in the news, an immediate reaction is, ‘Wow, could this really happen?’”
Social work senior Molly Ballantyne said it was “disheartening” to hear the news from Penn State.
“We’re just so passionate about helping people, especially the social workers here,” she said.
More oversight was needed at Penn State to report the alleged abuse, Ballantyne said, saying that PSU officials had a “moral obligation” to act in those situations.
“As social workers, we’re required by law to report these types of things,” she said.
The response to the incident from the MSU community has been encouraging, said Scott Westerman, executive director of the MSU Alumni Association.
Westerman attended the event and helped light candles.
“The MSU Alumni Association strongly supports the MSU Sexual Assault Program and all the work it does,” he said.
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