Janine Latus, author of the nonfiction book If I Am Missing or Dead, will return to the Ferrum College campus on March 30 to lead a discussion about relationship abuse. The event will take place in the Panthers Den in Franklin Hall at 11:30 a.m. All are welcome for free.
Latus is a journalist, author and advocate who describes herself as a “fierce warrior against sexual assault and domestic violence.”
She travels the world telling her own stories about domestic violence and educating clients who have included the U.S. Navy, Major League Baseball, and many other companies, nonprofits, and schools. Her work has inspired thousands of people to recognize relationship abuse, break free, and heal. One previous host called her “the most compelling speaker on sexual assault and relationship violence that I have ever heard.”
In addition to being a widely sought-after speaker, Latus is also a writing teacher and her New York Times best-selling book, If I Am Missing or Dead, was published in 2007. She earned a bachelor’s degree in horticulture and a master’s degree in journalism at the University of Missouri-Columbia. One Amazon reviewer wrote about her book, “I give this story . . . my highest recommendation. I would like to track down the journalism professor who once gave Janine Latus a ‘C’ and buy her a copy of the book.”
After one of Latus’ previous three visits to Ferrum College, Professor of English Lana Whited wrote, “I have seldom heard the undergraduate students on our campus quieter than when Janine Latus was speaking to them. At the end of my class, students filed out, shaking her hand and offering their thanks. Over the course of the three days she spent on our campus, she spoke in five classes, at a campus-wide program, and with clients at our local women’s shelter. On campus, I frequently saw students talking with her privately, sometimes with tears in their eyes. Janine helps victims of abuse understand that they neither deserved nor provoked it, and she encourages them on their own healing journeys. She is generous with her time and talents and unwavering in her crusade to spare others what she and her sister Amy endured. Her message resonates long after she has gone.”
You can watch a TED talk by Latus on YouTube, and you can read her feature stories at janinelatus.com.
Copies of her book will be available for purchase, and a reception will follow the program. It is sponsored by the Ferrum chapter of Help Save the Next Girl, as well as the Quality Enhancement Program and the Office of Student Leadership and Engagement.
Help Save the Next Girl is a national nonprofit organization formed in honor of Morgan Dana Harrington, a 20-year-old Virginia Tech student who was abducted and murdered in 2009. It seeks to sensitize young women and girls to predatory danger. The foundation fosters mutual respect and camaraderie with young men, and is committed to be an active, imaginative presence on campuses and in clubs and violence prevention forums across the country. Help Save the Next Girl continually develops vital relationships with media and law enforcement. Its connections enhance its ability to quickly disseminate urgent information, such as about a missing person. Help Save the Next Girl also provides outreach support to victims’ families. Its media presence also promotes its mission to keep young women and campus communities alert to predatory danger. It participates actively in endorsing legislation that augments safety practices in communities. Through diligent activism in education, victim support, and legislation, it creates a strong foundation against violence as it strives to help save the next girl.
More background:
“If I am missing or dead, this has obviously not protected me,” wrote Janine Latus’s youngest sister, Amy, in a note she taped to the underside of her desk in 2002. The note was found after Amy disappeared during the same spring when Janine left her own marriage–escaped, she would say–due to feelings of being “afraid, controlled, inadequate, and trapped.” A journalist by training, Janine turned her skills in investigation and analysis to the question of how she and her sister, “two seemingly well-adjusted, successful women,” ended up in relationships with men who regularly assaulted and denigrated them physically, emotionally, and psychologically. The result was If I Am Missing or Dead: A Sister’s Story of Love, Murder, and LIberation, published by Simon & Schuster in 2007. On the momentum of the book’s success, Latus launched a crusade to take her insights wherever they might be useful–to college campuses, civic and advocacy organizations, and training sessions with organizations such as the U.S. Department of Defense and Major League Baseball.
Information provided by Dr. Lana Whited and Ms. Janine Latus.
