Students, faculty and community members came together Wednesday morning in the Russell House Ballroom to recognize everyday heroes at the eighth annual Stand Up Carolina Hero Awards banquet. Guests snacking on a complementary breakfast of parfaits and bagels listened to the stories of the honored students and faculty members who have made impacts on the lives of others.
The event is held by the Stand Up Carolina initiative which is part of the Sexual Assault and Violence Intervention and Prevention program at the Student Health Center. The initiative encourages Carolinians to be accountable bystanders by being aware of situations and willing to help when something seems wrong.
The program is currently led by Shannon Nix, the associate director of SAVIP.
"Our bystanders overall focus is not just about interpersonal violence," Nix said of Stand Up Carolina. "It's about mental health, it's about LGBT, transphobia, homophobia, xenophobia. We try to cover all of that."
Third-year elementary education student Minda Hunter was nominated as a hero for the support she has shown to others as a Resident Mentor. Although Hunter didn't know about the program until she was nominated for the hero award she stated that she has always believed in being aware of situations.
"It's just when you see something that's not supposed to be right, you fix it or you help out whoever is in that situation," Hunter said of what being an accountable bystander means to her.
Another student nominee, Mary Copeland Cain, was very familiar with the Stand Up Carolina Initiative. Cain was nominated alongside Lindsay Bratun their work with the It's on Us campaign through USC's Student Government which encourages students to be active bystanders of sexual assault. The program focuses largely on educating students about the signs of sexual assault.
"It's pairing what it looks like and then how to do something and then having the confidence to do all of it," Cain said of learning to be an active bystander.
In addition to the annual Hero Awards, Stand Up Carolina educates students through presentations to U101 classes. Presentation facilitators train for a total of 12 hours in basic psychology and USC resources.
Nix says that the current plan is to expand the program to give presentations to more groups and to hold more events. During the ceremony, Nix announced that Jennifer Taylor will start April 10 as the first Stand Up Carolina program coordinator. Taylor will work to increase the impact of the program on campus.
"We've just not been able to launch it like we wanted because we've just been consistently