By Philip Timmerman

The Green Dot just got a little bigger.

The Center for Research on Violence Against Women announced in a news conference Thursday that it will be receiving a $2 million grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to study the effectiveness of UK’s Green Dot program.

The grant money will be used to conduct a study of Kentucky high schools on the effectiveness of the program.

“We will find out whether Green Dot prevents violence,” said Ann Coker of the Center for Research on Violence Against Women. “That’s why this is so important.”

Coker said the study will encompass about 128,000 high school students in schools across the state and will begin in the spring.

The Center for Research on Violence Against Women received one of only two grants CDC awarded this year, Coker said.

The Center will conduct surveys of the students during the five years of the grant to determine the program’s effectiveness. After two years, if the survey yields positive results, the Center will open Green Dot up to any high school interested in taking part.

The Green Dot program was conceived by the director of the Violence Intervention and Prevention Center, Dorothy Edwards. Green Dot seeks to prevent violence by teaching students how to become “active bystanders,” Coker said.

Coker said the program is based on the assumption that violence occurs when someone acts inappropriately and violently, and someone else does nothing.

UK President Lee Todd, who spoke at the conference, said fostering programs like Green Dot was part of the university’s responsibility.

“We can become a top-20 university by taking sponsors’ money and doing what they want us to do, but we need to do what Kentucky wants us to do,” Todd said. “We are committed to taking the Green Dot program across the country to create a safer dating environment for women.”

Other speakers included Carol Jordan, director of the Center for Research on Violence Against Women, James Adams of the College of Social Work and D.J. Edwards, Dorothy Edwards’ daughter.

D.J., a high school senior, spoke of the need for the Green Dot Program in high schools.

“By the time I graduate, many of my friends (will) have already been raped,” she said. “If college is the first time you hear about Green Dot, it’s too late.”

Jordan talked about the success she experienced in the 20 years she worked with the Rape Crisis Centers before coming to UK. During this time, the number of Crisis Centers increased from three to 13, and picked up state funding.

“There need not be separation between lofty ideals and real actions,” Jordan said. “We can end violence against women.”