I am surprised at how easily I find myself in a leadership position sometimes – I think oftentimes it is simply that other people feel too lazy or afraid to hold that responsibility and so I take it from them without thinking. I am a coxswain on my rowboat since I am on the crew team. I would do anything to help build this team up and get to NCAA, which this team has supposedly been striving for for at least the past couple of years in which we didn’t place as well in competitions. But supposedly, according to those who have been on the team the longest – it’s a race between the field hockey team and us – and I would love to see my fellow team members heading to the Rec early in the morning to hit the gym.

We’re earlybirds, definitely, and that keeps the team together under a positive attitude. I suppose another thing that helps me lead is that I definitely take time to listen to my fellow rowers on the boat, though my coach tells me that is not advisable from now on. I definitely explain to them in more or less detail about the drills we are doing and am acutely conscious of when my timing is off. (I am the only one on the boat speaking, usually, and the word you will most often hear me say is “row!”)

Therefore, I can definitely improve upon my level of assertiveness leading the team – since most people trust me to be in this position. Coach trusts me, the other coxswains trust me, and I have a feeling the other rowers like me a little better after water practice – if only because they aren’t so physically exhausted after being with me and because I try to listen to them complain anyway.

Above all, I hold this leadership position in pursuit of a common goal we have as a team. I wouldn’t necessarily mind being the one to do the physical labor, but there is more of a demand for brains than brawns at this point. We can’t win a race without someone steering the boat. And even I will be running around on race day trying to figure out what different events I’m going to cox in – there’s a limited supply of us. Also having gotten a new coach, it seems to be a good luck omen that there are two new coxswains in training, one of whom is already planning to transfer out. After this semester, the most experienced coxswain is leaving, and I will have the responsibility of coaching the newbies in a year, I bet. It is a fast learning curve, but I never stop to think whether I am up to it. I am not going to think how I will be in a year, but I’d better soak everything I’m learning in right now. Now is the moment. That’s the hardest part.

I don’t think about an ideal group, to be honest. I like to think what I can contribute to the team and where I see the team members and me going towards. I like to sympathize with the people whom I’ve met and look to the personal qualities of those who have been on the team the longest – so we can feel camaraderie still fifty years from now at college reunion – hopefully it’s not too awkward! – and so that Stony Brook crew may become known for what it is – individual, made up of the unique efforts of everyone on the team.

I was taken back instantly by this writing prompt to what video I watched at orientation along with my other ITS freshmen. It was a video about sexual assault, which is the kind of assault talked about in Maribel’s story. One striking image was that of a person lying unconscious on the floor while another stands over them, pouring tea down their throats. In this kind of instance, I think it will be most helpful if someone else uses humor to make the assaulter look idiotic. Most harassment doesn’t necessarily require the use of force to make them stop, because they are intrinsically motivated. Therefore they must be intrinsically persuaded.

Although I have been part of an intervention as recently as last week, nothing fruitful came of my telling the “authorities.” Unfortunately, not all situations are able to be settled out by a third party, especially if the assault has already taken place. The girl was taunted by vulgar verbal comments, and the boys were just walking away, laughing among each other, as if their mouths weren’t connected to their brains. The fact that the object of their “desire” was also walking away from them in the opposite direction did not seem to be of importance to them; after all, assault is in the fabric of the music videos they watch when they eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day.

When I told the residence hall advisor what had happened, she and her friend said there was nothing they could do unless she also reported the incident. So it turns out that bystanders have limited power when it comes to influencing the outcome of a potentially damaging event. Our society is a strange mix of acting Big Brother, being friendly to strangers, and being nonchalant about issues relating to all teenagers.

So next time I’m talking to the residence hall director, not advisors, who are just young people like me who probably are those same nonchalant people I talked about. Sometimes all it is is confiding to someone you find more agreeable than the alternative.