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Dr. Jackson Katz is an educator, filmmaker, and cultural theorist in the areas of masculinity and preventing gender violence. He delivered a talk, 'Taking It Personally: Why Gender Violence Is An Issue For Men,' Thursday night in Ball Theater.

Known for his pioneering academic work and activism, Dr. Katz is the co-founder of Mentors in Violence Prevention, an influential gender violence prevention program in North America.

MVP is the first major program of its kind to work with college and professional athletes, as well as the U.S. military.

During and after his talk, there were plenty of questions from students in attendance.

'How do you become a good person,' Katz asked. 'Through empathy, compassion, and intellectual curiosity.'

Friday morning Katz met with student leaders in Trippet Hall. Here Katz begins the Q&A session as Corey Leuters '19 looks on.

Ryan Walters '18 listens intently.

'Gender violence is a men's issue,' said Katz. 'Any solution must include the work of men.'

Sam Surgalski '19 shares a laugh during the talk.

Anthony Eley '19 pauses as someone at his table poses a question.

'The major innovation of MVP is the Bystander Apprach. It's not perpetrator and victim. All members of a peer group can assist. We all have a role to play,' said Katz.

Drew Biddle '17 awaits an answer.

'Instead of focusing on risk reduction, the idea was to bring everybody in the peer culture into the discussion,' said Katz. 'It gave us a way to talk to men.'

'If you laugh along with the jokes and the comments, Katz asked, 'aren't you complicit in the actions?'

Assistant Professor of History Sabrina Thomas introduces Dr. Katz during his afternoon talk in Baxter Hall with faculty and staff, 'Gender Violence Prevention as an Educational Leadership Imperative.'

'I see these fundamentally as leadership issues,' said Katz. 'Leaders set the tone. These are hard conversations...an expression of concern takes guts. I think men's lives improve when we have these conversations.'

'It takes guts to take these steps forward,' Katz said. 'I feel that a lot of men agree with steppting up. The goal is to faciliate dialogue.'

'This is 100 percent relevant to a school like Wabash,' Katz said. 'This is totally consistent with this school's values. This is an incredibly important space for these dialogues.'

'What better place to stress the importance of these conversations than in an all-male institution,' asked Katz.

The hour-long conversation was sponsored by the Gender Issues Committee.

The questions from Katz were many: 'What can you do? How do you think through scenarios? How do we integrate these? The dialogue is part of the pedagogy,' he said.

The slogan, 'Wabash Always Fights,' the first time I heard that I thought, 'for justice…Wabash Always Fights for Justice,' said Katz. 'Fighting is ok if you are fighting for justice. It’s not the idea of fighting, it’s what you are fighting for. I think it would make a very powerful statement as one of only three remaining men’s colleges in the United States if part of the mission of the college was to train young men for gender justice; to go out in the world and help to promote equality between the sexes and reduce gender violence. I think that would fit with the existing mission of the college, but it would be an expansion of that mission. It would be incredibly powerful and set an example that training young men of character includes speaking out against sexism.'

Jennifer Abbott, Associate Profesor of Rhetoric, asks a question of Dr. Katz.

Visiting Assistant Professor of Philosophy Jeffrey Gower had a front-row seat for the conversation.