Jennie Hemingway occupies a familiar but new role at Knox. Over the summer, she was hired as the Director of Title IX and Civil Rights Compliance. This job covers all of the duties of Title IX Coordination, with some additional responsibilities.

“My position is a little bit different than what Kim [Schrader] had, I’m that one-stop shop now for discrimination and harassment,” Hemingway said.

Hemingway handles all submissions from the bias reporting form. If students have concerns about or feel they are experiencing discrimination based on religion, race, nationality, or disability, they can use this form to report it, or speak to Hemingway directly.

Originally from Ohio, Hemingway has lived in Illinois since 2004, having moved here with her husband, who got a professor position at Western Illinois University (WIU). Hemingway’s first job in Illinois was at Knox from 2004 to 2006. While here, she held a blended position between Advancement and Student Development. During this time she worked with a group called the Knox Ambassadors who focused on the transition between student life and alumni life.

Hemingway feels that the student body continues to hold the same values that it did when she was first here.

“The students that choose to make a college home at Knox, there are those continuing characteristics, they really deeply care about the world and their place in that world and they want to make things better, the protests and all of that,” Hemingway said. “Part of that is, one: getting your voice, which we want that to happen in college, but two: you want the world to be a better place, you want the world to be a more just place, and that was true when I was here 18, 20 years ago and that’s true now.”

In 2006 she moved from her position at Knox to WIU because a position became available and she was looking forward to walking to work, rather than driving. Hemingway held multiple roles during her time at WIU. In 2011, she became involved in student conduct, most notably, cases of sexual violence.

“In 2011 when the Department of Education released its dear colleague letter about how institutions need to address sexual violence… The institution I was at started using its student conduct process for some of those cases and so I started working on the student conduct side,” Hemingway said.

From 2011 to 2016, Hemingway was the Assistant Director Center for the Study of Masculinities and Men’s Development at WIU. She believes that it is important for men to see themselves as active participants in the fight against sexual violence.

“I was also involved with an effort to bring male identifying students into the conversation, developing a bystander education program specifically targeted towards male identifying students but at the same time not calling them out,” Hemingway said. “I think that’s really what we were hearing from the student body at the time is that everything around that time framed them as perpetrators when we needed to see them as partners.”

Later in her time at WIU, Hemingway became a Hearing Officer and was involved in investigations and adjudications of Title IX cases. This is when she earned her certification as an investigator.

In 2018, Hemingway moved from WIU to Illinois College. There, she was the Associate Dean of Students and soon became the Title IX Coordinator. She then moved to Augustana College in 2022 where she received additional training and responsibilities working with ADA 504 (disability discrimination) and Title VI (religion, race, national origin discrimination).

Although there are no federal guidelines on how many hours of training that personnel involved in Title IX investigation must complete, they are required to complete at least some training. Illinois has a law requiring at least 10 hours of training every year.

“I can tell you that pretty much everybody doing this work has far exceeded that with their training every year,” Hemingway said. “I don’t think anybody is in this field without some motivation that we’d love to put ourselves out of work and the best way to do that is obviously prevention and so one of the reasons that I was drawn to this job is the fact that the peer educators are here and there is that emphasis on prevention.”

Hemingway wants to focus on continuing to change the culture and send the message that discrimination of any kind is not tolerated at Knox. She wants to be a place where everyone can be who they are and be respected. Hemingway is also focused on making the office a welcoming place for students to seek support.

“I think sometimes people think this office can be scary, and really it’s a support for students. I want them to realize that it is a place of care and support but at the same time I have a responsibility to our policies and procedures, walking students through their options and that they don’t have to make a report if they don’t want to but we can still provide support without that,” Hemingway said.