On a chilly February day in Madison, Wisconsin, roughly 55 students gather in a ballroom on Memorial Union’s fourth floor. With backpacks and parkas scattered around the room, the students sit broken up into small groups. Sounds of engaged voices echo throughout the space.

At first glance, this assembly appears as a usual student org meeting. However, with a closer look, with a longer listen, this meeting is unexpected: 55 students, the majority being men, discussing harmful dating norms and their implications for sexual violence.

The University of Wisconsin-Madison is lucky to have We’re Better Than That: Men Against Sexual Assault, the student organization that made its debut on the UW campus in September 2015. WBTT aims to engage men in the conversation on sexual assault, empower survivors and promote action against sexual violence within campus culture.

John Swanke, the current president of WBTT, was initially interested in the organization after learning about the statistics on sexual assault as a freshman on campus.

“When I was a freshman, the president of Psi Upsilon, my fraternity, brought me to one of WBTT’s general member meetings. It was a panel of experts on the issue from different organizations on campus. They were discussing the recent campus climate survey results that 25 percent of women are sexually assaulted at some point during their undergraduate career,” Swanke said. “That was a big slap to the face. As a freshman, I understood at the time that rape and molestation existed, but I didn’t really understand how prevalent it was.”

That realization led Swanke to apply to the executive board of WBTT that spring semester, where he became the secretary. In following semesters, Swanke went on to serve as WBTT’s treasurer and now works as its president as a junior at UW-Madison.

We’re Better Than That operates upon its foundational goal of engaging men in the conversation on sexual assault and encouraging them to be active in prevention on campus. Rather than fueling long-standing stigmas surrounding sexual assault, WBTT aims to transition the issue from solely a women’s concern to a humanitarian one.

The organization executes their mission by holding monthly general member meetings and facilitating WBTT sub-committees in specific areas of campus, such as Greek life, incoming students and athletics.

Last fall, WBTT played a pivotal role in changing bylaws to combat sexual assault within the Greek community at UW-Madison. Thanks to WBTT’s help, all Greek organizations are now required to have health and wellness chairs, helping to target sexual violence on an organization-to-organization basis.

“I think mandating that every fraternity chapter has to have one of these chairs forces people to take the issue seriously. Some people might not be as passionate about something like We’re Better Than That, but having a member dedicated to having peer-to-peer discussions and to knowing all of the available resources is really beneficial,” Swanke said.

Going forward, WBTT will continue to address the issue of sexual assault through diverse campus outreach, the facilitation of meaningful dialogue and the offering of support and empowerment for survivors.

We’re Better Than That: Men Against Sexual Assault is the organization that every campus needs. We need more men to join in the conversation on sexual assault. Thanks to the efforts of an organization like WBTT, perhaps one day, all members of society will work together to combat this issue collaboratively— not just victims.

“For us to have any hope of achieving historic reductions in incidents of violence against women, at a minimum, we will need to dream big and act boldly. It almost goes without saying that we will need the help of a lot more men — at all levels of power and influence — than are currently involved.” –Jackson Katz, The Macho Paradox

To learn more about WBTT or find out how you can get involved, visit wbttmasa.com.