By Dr. Chris Linder, MCVP Director (Center origin – May 2025)

On October 22, 2018, Lauren McCluskey was tragically murdered on campus by a man she had briefly dated. It was my first fall as a faculty member at the University of Utah, though I was no stranger to intimate partner violence. I will always remember waking up to the safety alert in the middle of the night. I knew immediately that it was not a random murder–that more than likely some sort of dating relationship was involved. As the details unfolded, I learned I was, unfortunately, correct. In the aftermath of this tragedy, campus community members came together to begin to explore how to move forward, heal, and prevent this violence from happening again. President Watkins invited me to join a task force focused on healthy relationships that included a number of people from across campus who were already working tirelessly to address and prevent interpersonal violence. Disturbingly, two more women affiliated with the University of Utah were also murdered in that same academic year by people with whom they were in current or previous romantic relationships. Dr. Sarah Hawley was a medical resident at the U of U Health Sciences campus and was murdered in January 2019 by her partner in their home. Undergraduate student McKenzie Lueck was murdered by someone she met on a dating site in the summer of 2019. In February 2022, Zhifan Dong, another undergraduate student, was murdered by a man that she dated.

At some point in the scramble to figure out what to do to address this violence, I approached President Watkins and said, “We need a Center for Violence Prevention.” It had been a dream of mine for some time to start a Center focused explicitly on dating and sexual violence among college students that combined research and education to stop violence from happening in the first place. As someone who had worked in higher education for almost 20 years, I had seen a lot. Despite our collective best efforts at responding to violence effectively and attempting to educate potential victims about the warning signs of a violent relationship, rates of violence had not changed among college students in over 60 years. It was time to do something different.

Thankfully, President Watkins said, “Yes, please!” and she immediately supported our work by fundraising to support the Center. I started by organizing a group of faculty and staff on campus to serve as the advisory board, and we devised a mission statement and strategic plan. Our mission included focusing on primary prevention by interrupting harm, rather than only reducing risk. Frustrated with the on-going violence and continuous unnecessary loss of life, many members of the campus community were on board with adding to the incredible work already being done by so many. The campus experienced a significant shift in campus safety resources and protocols, developing an entire division focused on campus safety, including hiring a Chief Safety Officer for the U.

The Center for Violence Prevention was re-named the McCluskey Center for Violence Prevention in October 2020 as a result of the University’s settlement with the McCluskey family and our work continued on. In the first few years of the Center’s existence, we largely focused on engaging campus community members in the work of violence prevention. In addition to the advisory board, we also created working groups that focused on specific areas of violence prevention: working with those who cause harm, community and identity-based approaches to violence prevention, and general education and awareness. These working groups changed and evolved over time, eventually disbanding in 2023 after engagement waned. In Spring of 2020, we also hired student staff to assist in the development of the Center. My hope was that students would be aware of the needs of their communities, providing insight that faculty and staff might not have.

We engaged in a number of initiatives those first few years – most of which were not considered “best practices” in the field of violence prevention. We sought to turn the narrative of risk reduction on its head–rather than asking what someone should do to avoid being harmed, we asked what students needed to understand to avoid causing harm. We hosted speakers during working group meetings and book clubs for students, faculty, and staff. We applied for and received a university grant for interdisciplinary research. We conducted a large number of workshops for community members interested in better understanding the dynamics of relationship and sexual violence among college students. We created a “You might be causing harm if…” campaign focused on interrupting harm from the perspective of the person who might be causing it.

Fast forward to today, and I am happy to share the evolution of all of these things. We initiated four national research teams focused on better understanding dating and sexual violence among college students. We developed a scaffolded curriculum for student-athletes who are required to engage in annual sexual violence education. We created an active Instagram education series focused on understanding and interrupting harm. We launched a podcast. We engaged committed student staff who continue to influence their peers in formal and informal ways. We stay connected with a robust network of alumni–former student staff who continue to use the work to influence change in their communities and jobs.

As I wrap up my final year leading the Center and reflect back on the last five years, I am proud of the experiments that we tried (and failed!) and all we have done together:

We built community.
We dreamed.
We developed working groups.
We facilitated theory-to-practice dialogues.
We read all the things.
We journaled.
We fundraised.
We facilitated book clubs.
We created workshops.
We facilitated workshops.
And more workshops.
We engaged in research.
And more research.
We built an advisory board.
We hired student staff.
We hired content creators.
We hired a person to work with those who cause harm.
We hired a marketing and communications specialist.
We hired a postdoctoral researcher.
We collaborated with researchers from across the U.S.
We shared our research locally and around the country.
We created an Instagram account, a YouTube account, and a podcast.
We created more workshops. And facilitated them.
We mourned with those who lost students to IPV after we did.
We leaned on each other.
We laughed.
We cried.
We ate.
We said yes.
We said no.
We took risks.
We caused harm.
We repaired harm.
We interrupted harm.

It hasn’t always been perfect – I have caused harm and made mistakes along the way. I have also leaned into my abolitionist values of repair and rebuilding. I also know that my privilege as a cisgender, white, neurotypical, tenured faculty member allowed me to take risks some others might not be allowed to take. Through it all, I still believe in transformation. I believe that abolition is our destination. We must engage in generations upon generations of healing, but we will get there. A world without violence is possible. A world where everyone’s needs are met and where people do not need to engage in violence as a coping strategy for their own experiences with harm and trauma is possible.

Our job is to create a world where that can exist–where people can heal from the harm they experienced so they don’t go on to cause more harm. Where we can rely on people to make good choices, rather than policy, to guide our actions—both as individuals and as faculty and staff guiding institutions of higher education.

I will always be grateful to the people of this community who trusted me, believed in me, and pushed and supported me to lead this Center, even when it was hard. I will always be grateful for those who followed, took ownership and led, and believe in a world where violence no longer exists.

To Niah and Nadeeka, thank you for believing in me and making me a better thinker, writer, and human. Thank you for practicing abolition with me–now and always.

To Stephen, who listened to, processed, and supported me in the dreaming.

To Ruth and Laura for seeing (or at least believing in) my vision and saying yes.

To President Randall for keeping the vision alive and continuing to support this endeavor that so many other presidents would have shut down for not relying on “best practices.”

And to everyone else who has been a part of this journey somewhere along the way, especially the current and former staff of the MCVP who will always have a special place in my heart and my dreams. We did this. And we will keep doing it.

What is your answer to adrienne maree brown’s question, “How do we build the future on a deep yes, a deep longing for what we want?”

I’ll see you in that future, friends. Onward!