About Us

Christine Dennis Smith, Project Director and Associate Director for Counseling & Advocacy, Women's Center
Christine's responsibilities include directing the Women's Center's Counseling and Advocacy Program and our outreach and education on gender based violence issues. Christine, along with other Women's Center staff, provides the following services to students, faculty, and staff who are victims of sexual assault, relationship violence, stalking, and/or harassment: crisis intervention; short term counseling; advocacy; accompaniment to law enforcement, medical facilities, and judicial proceedings; and information and referral. Christine is also available to do educational presentations and training to student, faculty, and staff groups. Christine joined the Women's Center in June of 2001.   She has her Masters in Social Work (M.S.W.) and is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker (L.C.S.W).   She has extensive experience working with survivors of sexual assault, dating and domestic violence, stalking, and sexual harassment.

Jennifer Underwood, Victim Services Outreach Coordinator, Women's Center
Jennifer joined the Women’s Center and the VAWA team in July 2006 where she works to increase awareness of gender-based violence issues among first-year and sophomore students and to increase reports of sexual assault, relationship violence, and stalking. Jennifer is responsible for developing a protocol to deal with incidents of interpersonal violence, organizing campus-wide programs, facilitating presentations for classes and student organizations, and providing direct services and advocacy to students, faculty and staff. She has experience working with survivors of sexual violence, relationship violence, and stalking, as well as with campus and community outreach and education. Jennifer earned her M.S.W. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Meghan Weyrens Kuhn, Judicial Coordinator, Office of Judicial Affairs
Meghan began her work with the grant as the Outreach and Adjudication GA in 2005. She has receive extensive training on violence against women prevention, best practices of adjudication sexual misconduct cases and has provided educational outreach to the campus community since her arrival at Virginia Tech. She received her M.Ed. in Higher Education and Student Affairs from Virginia Tech in May 2007 and a B.S. in Biology and Spanish from Saint Lawrence University in 2002.

Joe Shanks, Virginia Tech Police Department
Joe is an officer in the Community Outreach Unit of the Virginia Tech Police Department. He works with other officers in the Community Outreach Unit, as well as members of the VAWA team, to education the campus community on a wide variety of issues impacting students, faculty, and staff.

Jeff Yacup, Outreach and Adjudication GA. With the Women's Center, Jeff is responsible for advising the student group, SAVES (Sexual Assault & Violence Education by Students). In the Office of Judicial Affairs, he adjudicates cases where there has been a violation of the University Policies for Student Life. He also helps give presentations on issues of sexual assault, relationship violence, stalking, and cyberstalking. He is currently a first year student in the school of Education pursuing his master's in higher education. Jeff received his B.S. in sociology with a concentration in crime/deviance and a double major in psychology from Virginia Tech.

 

 

Grant statement: This project was supported by grant # 2005-WA-AX-0020 awarded by the Violence Against Women Office, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice. Points of View in this document are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.

 

 

Last updated 03/29/2007