Hamilton Gazetteer / Entities / Meredith Bonham

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person

Meredith Bonham

Overview

Meredith Bonham served as Senior Associate Dean at Hamilton College and co-launched the “Yes Means Yes” campus sexual consent initiative in fall 2013 alongside Chief Diversity Officer Amit Taneja. Her work occurred during a period of national Title IX reform and grew from Hamilton’s sustained engagement with sexual misconduct policy across the 2009–2013 period.

Relevance to Research

Bonham appears in fall 2013 Spectator issues in the context of the “Yes Means Yes” initiative, which she co-developed with CDO Taneja as a campus-wide sexual consent education program. The initiative emerged from the national Title IX reform wave and Hamilton’s own evolving sexual misconduct hearing procedures. The same period saw Angie Epifano — whose 2012 Amherst account galvanized national attention to campus Title IX failures — lecture in the Hamilton Chapel in October 2013. A 2013 campus survey documented 94% of students reporting that the campus atmosphere encouraged excessive drinking, directly linking alcohol culture to sexual assault risk.

Notes

Role: Senior Associate Dean
Years active at Hamilton: documented in fall 2013
Key events: - Co-developed “Yes Means Yes” campus sexual consent initiative with CDO Amit Taneja (fall 2013) - “Yes Means Yes” was part of Hamilton’s broader response to the national Title IX reform wave (2009–2013) - Her work coincided with new mandatory reporter policies and revised sexual misconduct hearing procedures - The fall 2013 period also included Angie Epifano’s Chapel lecture on Title IX rights and institutional adjudication failures - A 2013 survey found 94% of students reporting campus atmosphere encouraged excessive drinking, the backdrop for the consent initiative