Monday night, UK was flowing with green dots and candles as students marched around campus and sat at the Memorial Hall Amphitheater to speak out against violence at Take Back the Night.

Take Back the Night is a national event that began in the 1970s. The event was hosted by the Violence Intervention and Prevention Center and encourages men and women to confront issues like rape, verbal and sexual abuse and stalking, according to a Tuesday Kernel article.

Everyone sees the VIP Center’s green dots on backpacks and T-shirts around campus, but many students don’t know what these dots mean.

At the rally, many students learned that the green dots symbolize a behavior‚ choice‚ word or attitude that promotes safety and communicates intolerance for violence, while a red dot represents a violent act.

Elaine Collins, an English junior, said that her “green dot moment” was the 50 Journals Project where she placed 50 journals around campus for students to write their stories and pass them to other students, according to the Kernel article.

While Take Back the Night is the most visible VIP Center event, the organization does much more than this once-a-year rally. The SEEDS, or Students Educating and Empowering to Develop Safety, program teaches about the social issues that bring about violence at UK and divides students into groups to think through different scenarios. The intention is that students will go back to their friends, classes and other organizations and use their knowledge to make UK a safer place.

In addition to these programs, the VIP Center works daily to provide assistance in accessing and navigating services‚ resources and referrals on and off campus. VIP Center services include academic advocacy‚ medical advocacy‚ counseling referrals‚ financial advocacy‚ referral advocacy and addresses any other needs a student may have, according to their Web site.

Despite these services, the VIP Center’s activities are not visible to the campus at large. Its home in Frazee Hall is out of sight to any student who isn’t looking for the organization. In order to reach more students, the VIP Center members must make themselves more visible in ways other than handing out little green dots.