Kevin Sheppard began as Title IX Coordinator and ADA Compliance officer on Nov. 1. Sheppard was a Title IX Investigator at the University of South Carolina for the last eight years.
Sheppard is a South Carolina native and a Reverend at Mt. Zion Baptist in Chaplin, South Carolina. Sheppard has a degree in both religious studies and paralegal studies and is currently working to obtain a Master’s in public administration. He is also a veteran of the United States Air Force.
Sheppard chose Winthrop due to the environment of the campus and the location, which allows him to stay close to his family.
“My final decision for choosing Winthrop was simple: location, which again allows me to stay closer to my family, and not have to relocate to a different state, was the best fit for me,” Sheppard said. “My professional career and where I’m trying to go based on the experience I’ve had and the people I met during the interview process at Winthrop, I felt I had a connection where we would be able to form partnerships that would allow Winthrop to be able to take the next step in this Title IX arena that we’re now living in.”
In this next step, Sheppard is looking forward to getting on campus and partnering with those who he sees as the stakeholders in things like Title IX and accessibility issues.
“I’m looking forward to the challenge of being able to come in and to partner with the stakeholders, whether that be faculty, staff, students, the community, to make a difference in what’s going on there. So I’m just really looking forward to the challenge of getting there, getting on campus and getting to work,” Sheppard said.
Sheppard is also open to the idea of working with students and opening up to the concerns students have raised about Winthrop University’s issues with their Title IX program and the accessibility issues on campus.
“And so one thing that I did talk about [during the hiring process] was having not just a town hall, but multiple town halls, multiple events and programs put in place where, again, the partnerships can be formed with the students and the student organizations. Because again, the students are what I would call the foot soldiers on the ground. They’re more in tune with what’s actually going on in the residence halls, what’s going on around campus and things of that nature,” Sheppard said.
Acknowledging that the students are an important part of knowing what is actually happening on a university’s campus, Sheppard said that only communicating with administrators will leave out an important group that can assist in making things better.
“[I]f we’re only talking to administrators and not talking to students as well, then we’re missing an important sector of the individuals who can assist in making Winthrop be the premier college in regards to Title IX compliance and how we work with those things. So I would be very open in working with students and student organizations,” Sheppard said.
Members of the student-led group WU Students for Change, who work to make students’ voices heard by administration, are nervous about the hiring of Sheppard to the position of both Title IX Coordinator and ADA Compliance officer.
“We are quite concerned that not only has the person that we looked up not had much Title IX training, but he has not had much Title IX success at his previous position. USC is facing multiple lawsuits right now related to Title IX, it is clear that no matter what happened on that campus, he did not do the best job he could’ve done,” said Rayvn Speigner, freshman music technology major.
Speigner also addressed the group’s concerns with the combination of both the Title IX Coordinator position and ADA Compliance officer position.
“They’re not unrelated. But they are both intricate in different ways. And so I personally, and I think that a lot of our members will attest to this, it feels sort of like a cop out. It feels like not only did they hire someone who doesn’t have much, if any, Title IX training, they did not hire a person that is trained in ADA compliance, or how to handle students with disabilities on a campus that wasn’t even remotely related to his previous position at USC. So to create a position, like I said, for both of those things, not only invalidates both of those groups, separately and mutually by sending the message that they only care so much, you know, not only does it do that, but it just doesn’t look good to hire someone who was probably unqualified,” said Speigner.
Dwayne Kirkland, a freshman mass communication major and member of WU Students for Change, echoed Speigner’s concerns.
“Title IX is a massive, complicated law. The Americans with Disabilities Act is also a massive complicated law. And I think that trying to put all that on into one position is going to disservice somebody, whether it’s survivors, or its students with disabilities, it’s going to end up, somebody’s going to end up getting shorter, which is the point that we’ve been trying to get them to do is address is that survivors aren’t getting the attention they need and deserve. And now we’re just putting students with disabilities at risk for the same thing,” Kirkland said.
As a university with an extremely diverse student body, it’s important to also highlight the LGBTQ+ community and what a new Title IX Coordinator will mean for them, especially with the heteronormative outline of what is considered sexual assault to Winthrop University.
“When we talk about things in reference to the LGBTQ+ community, again, when we look at those things, and my perspective about it is any individual who falls in any of those categories, first and foremost, they are persons, they are human beings, and they are human beings with rights and rights that have to be protected,” Sheppard said.
Members of the LGBTQ+ community are concerned with Sheppard’s position as a reverend and pastor and how that may affect survivors.
“We are asking queer people to report sexual assault or domestic violence to somebody who might have held a position as a pastor, similar to somebody who traumatize them. I mean, that’s putting queer people, and other people who have been traumatized by religion in a really bad place,” said Milo Wolverton, senior English literature major and member of WU Students for Change.
Sheppard believes that he will be able to leave his job as pastor at the door when he comes onto campus as Title IX Coordinator and ADA Compliance officer.
“When I come to Winthrop University, I don’t come as Reverend Sheppard or Pastor Sheppard, I come as just mister Sheppard. I’m just Kevin Sheppard.”
Overall, students just want to be represented by those in positions like Sheppard.
“WU Students for Change has always been open to a fair, free dialogue with whoever would like to make change,” Speigner said. “We just don’t want to be put in a position that is unfair to us and is unfair to our members, our survivors that we represent, but we would totally be willing to have a town hall or even just to have a few representatives. Communication is excellent, but if the intention is not there, there is only so much you can do as an angry student.”
