51乱伦

Blog

Lakeland debuts new faculty lecture series

Oct. 31, 2025

This semester, Alyssa Voigt, a junior from New Holstein, Wis., majoring in marketing, is creating content for the Lakeland blog. This is the latest in a series of blog stories she has written.

51乱伦 Assistant Professor of Communication Aimee Burns-Boisvert, Ph.D., recently provided an inspiring and interactive talk entitled 鈥淐reating Safer Communities: Conversations on Intimate Partner Violence鈥� on campus and in the Sheboygan community.

Her lecture was the first in a new LU series which allows a faculty member to highlight and celebrate an area of expertise in a forum that benefits the campus and wider community by enriching understandings of the human condition, contemporary issues, the arts and the physical and social worlds in which we live.

This year鈥檚 talk was co-sponsored by the and .

Burns-Boisvert has extensive scholarly experience regarding IPV, and she conceptualized her research by the four Rs: Resistance, Resilience, Recovery and Revival.

"My research on IPV focuses on how individuals use communication as an act of resistance, resilience, recovery and revival,鈥� she said. 鈥淗ow can we use communication to resist the things that are happening in these toxic, normal realities we experience? Using communication to become resilient and find connection with others. Recovery, using communication to be open and not stigmatize experiences, so that we can be more open and end it. And, finally, the revival of finding a life after violence.鈥�

As part of her Ph.D. work, Burns-Boisvert worked with community organizations from around the globe interviewing around 25 survivors of violence from Europe to Australia as part of a rigorous research process.

Burns-Boisvert also did over 120 hours of training to become an official volunteer advocate and she spent a year as an advocate for intimate partner violence, domestic violence and sexual violence. She has worked with a local organization where she provided 24/7 overnight emotional support, crisis intervention and safety planning.

鈥淲hen you do become an advocate, the main crux of all your work is that the survivor is the expert of their lives, and as an advocate, you are advocating for them and their decisions and the things that they do,鈥� she said.

Burns-Boisvert's off-campus lecture at Jake鈥檚, A Lakeland Community, presented an in-depth discussion on the complexities, prevalence and community response to IPV.

Some key takeaways included:

• Over 1.5 million women are assaulted annually. 1 in 6 women and 1 in 19 men experience stalking, and 1 in 4 women and nearly 1 in 7 men experience severe physical violence from an intimate partner.
• It takes an average of seven attempts for a survivor to successfully and safely leave a violent relationship. Survivors face a mix of psychological, emotional, social, financial and safety-related barriers.
• Psychological effects of IPV on individuals include anxiety, depression, PTSD and low self-esteem, as well as physical injuries, including chronic health problems or disability, and disruptive education and employment, leading to financial instability.
• Burns-Boisvert shared prevention and community response strategies to IPV, which include multi-level strategies, bystander intervention strategies and the action of holding space and respecting boundaries. Addressing IPV comes through multi-level strategies including societal, communal, relational and individual levels.
• Burns-Boisvert said the most feasible action people can take is the importance of holding space for others by being present, supportive and survivor-focused. Strategies include listening non-judgmentally and attentively, validating the survivor鈥檚 feelings and experiences, respecting boundaries and autonomy, not pressuring decisions, keeping information confidential unless an imminent threat exists, and empowering survivors with resources, affirming decision-making.

Those needing access to resources can visit the (open 24/7), Sojourner Truth and other hotlines, and national organizations such as National Resource Center on Domestic Violence, CDC, RAINN, and Love Is Respect.