Jeremy Holliday, Courtney Cronk, Kasey Bickel, Hannah Teweold

English 106

Alice D’Amore

13 October 2006

Abstract

Topic: Abusive Relationships

Why is this important? This is an important topic because we feel that abusive relationships are on the rise. It seems that abusive relationships are becoming more and more common as time goes by. We feel that this issue is not adequately being addressed here on Purdue campus. It is important to the health, well-being, and safety of Purdue’s students that Purdue staff is providing a service that is comprehensive enough to be able to assist the students with any problems that may arise.

What is an abusive relationship? An abusive relationship is a relationship where one or even both of the individuals engage in using or threatening to use physical and or psychological abuse. “Abuse” is usually defined by: Jealousy, lack of intimacy, forced or persuaded sexual encounters, verbal and physical violence, and being controlling.

What are some warning signs: Any sort of physical or emotional violence, including threats of said violence. Attempt to control aspects of your life, including but not limited to, friends, clothes you are allowed to wear, how you spend free time, and where you are allowed to go. The abuser may also make constant accusations of the victim being unfaithful or flirting with others. The abuser may attempt to place blame on the victim stating that he or she is the cause of the problems and force. Often friends or family of the victim do not seem to care for the person, and frequently warn you that they are worried about your safety. The abuser also usually demeans or often humiliates the victim purposely, inn front of others and or in the privacy of each other. Other warning signs include purposely destroying personal belongings due to uncontrollable rage issues or as some sort of punishment. To avoid an abusive relationship, keep a look out for these warning signs.

Getting out of an abusive relationship can sometimes be complicated. Since usually personal safety comes into question when trying to end a relationship with an abusive person, face to face interaction is not always the best way to go about things. Do it over the phone, in a text (no matter how shallow you may think it is) or in a letter if need be. Making empty threats to break up only pursues the problem. Also, do not break up while having an argument or some sort of conflict. Plan the break up ahead of time. Avoiding direct confrontation is the most important factor if you are or possibly think you may be dealing with a physically abusive person.

Nine of out ten victims that are abused are women. Women ages 25-34 are at the most risk for abuse. 51% of all women will experience some form of abuse by the time they are sixteen years of age. Many women are not aware that they are in abusive relationships. They often believe that many of the warning signs their significant other portrays (i.e. wanting to know where you are constantly, non-stop phone calls to “see if you are okay”, constant acts of jealousy) acts of undying and devoted love. Another reason why women do not usually realize that they are in an abusive relationship is because they’re friends are in such relationships as well, and it seems normal. Victims of abusive relationships are not always women. One out of ten victims are male.

Here at Purdue University there are many teen violent relationships because of the fact that many are experiencing their independence from their parents for the first time. They are inexperienced with dating, and also have different views about relationships and dating than an adult. They often times find themselves in these situations because they have not experienced a healthy relationship. 20% of college will experience some type of dating violence.

        The topic that our group decided to dissect is the issue of relationships.  girls and guys, guys and girls, girls and girls, guys and guys, short/long term relationships, open/closed relationships, long-distance/local realtionships, and any type of realtionship you can think of.

   we are going to evaluate the effects of relationships on studen'ts physical and mental states and academic success.  many people in schook, college, or otherwise, have relationships and these relationships largely effect their lives.

We intend to keep people from getting stressed out over their relationships when thigs go downhill.  we notice girls and guys perform poorly in school because of downfalls in their relationships.

we hope students will learn that education is more important than relationships and one should not affect the other.  student's educaions should be therir number one priority and relationships should be second.  We hope that students will build healthy relaionships that will not inhibit their sschoolwork.  students can learn to get involved in relaionships will be beneficial to good study habits.

We are doing something related to clothing rhetoric. ...yay rah

Why do we want to know about the different housing options on campus and what the “best” option?  Well first off we live here on campus for the better part of a year.  No one wants to live in dilapidated housing do they?  No, we want the best place to live and for the cheapest price possible.  The research we plan on conducting can be used as a future reference for current and future students, the audience of our piece, when they choose where they want to live for the year.  The hardest part we see with the project is finding female subjects to interview because our group is entirely comprised of males.  This project will impact Purdue University because it will give students the ability to see what housing options are available to them and which one is potentially the “best” option available.

     We are trying to discover and analyze which housing option is the best option for student living.  We plan on accomplishing this by acquiring student commentary from first hand experiences as well as factual evidence and presenting them into a presentation in logical order pertaining to which is the “best” and which is the “worst” option.  To do this, we will take an in depth look at the room sizes, location relative to campus, quality of living environment, meal options, and cost of each individual housing option.

First of all, we plan on finding at least two students per housing option, four students if it is co-ed housing option, two female and two male.  Once that is accomplished we plan on doing video interview with each participant in our research, acquiring their opinions and first hand accounts concerning the housing that they are currently living in.  We plan on accumulating each interview into a concise and informational documentary that provides current and future students with information that will help them choose the best housing according their personal preferences.

At this particular instance in time we are not exactly sure what will come of our research.  However, we already have some information that Purdue University, mostly concerning cost, has provided that gives us as a group an idea of what is possibly the best and worst housing option.  For example, at this point in time we expect to find that Meredith has the cheapest and smallest housing available to students living on campus.  We also expect to find that Cary Quadrangle has the most expensive housing available to students living on campus.

            When it comes for the time that incoming freshmen to begin t fill out the housing application they will have better knowledge of which residence hall best fits them. When all the interviews are completed, hopefully with enough input our group will be able to output information that will be helpful to other students on campus. With the information that will be gathered we look forward in helping students find a residence hall of their liking. If it depends o size of room, location according to campus, or just for the food at the hall we hope that these little facts will make it easier for an incoming student to make a decision when the time comes.

     If the student believes that our research was a just a joke we will encourage them to look up the numbers that are provided by the Housing Department here at Purdue. They are just numbers of cost of living but our research will have the opinions and outlook of those students who actually live in the halls. These opinions will not be of the staff but of the people who have to live in the environment that has been provided by university. The results altogether will be specific to each residence and its housing and meal plan options as well. We will try to cover every aspect of this research. From food, size of room and the residence hall locations according to the rest of campus.

This is just a preliminary idea, but we were thinking about doing the project on housing at purdue, looking at which is "the best" for students.