Men Against Sexual Assault, or MASA, was formed to educate men about the facts and myths regarding sexual assault. Our primary goals are to inform the public and prevent the continuance of sexual crimes. We feel targeting a male-only audience allows us to address some serious and controversial issues through hour-long presentations and open discussions. We also feel that mixed gender groups allow us to open up lines of communication about some of these important issues. By providing the population, particularly males, with the necessary information, we feel we can reduce the occurrence of sexual assault.

In the Fall of 1997, Kathy Sweetland brought together four men from different backgrounds. She knew they all shared the same belief that men hold a key to the elimination of violence against women. Each of these men worked in some way on Rape Prevention efforts, but only one had worked with a specific mens program. Paul Sturmer, a post-doctoral intern at Counseling and Mental Health Services was involved with a Men Against Violence Against Women program at SUNY Albany. Along with Paul, Dan Watts, from Residential Life, Carlos Leal, a graduate student in the Warner School and Graduate Head Resident, and Mike Schmoyer, UR's Health Educator and adjunct faculty member at SUNY Brockport met and began what would become MASA at UR.

The first program was held for a group of male RA candidates in January, 1998. One of the men in the audience was Chris Sabis. Chris became the link that changed MASA from a faculty/staff led programming initiative to the student organization that it is today. During that Spring Semester MASA was chosen as the name, more male students, including Joe Cacciola and Daryl DuLong, were recruited as members and educators, and MASA presented about 4 programs to residence hall floors and fraternity groups.

In November of 1998, a dedicated group of nine students, under the leadership of Dan Watts, set out on a mission to educate the University of Rochester community about the major issues surrounding sexual assault. Still holding to the ideals set upon creation, MASA presents programs and facilitates open discussions to varying groups on and around campus, focusing especially on males. We have since taken our program to the power of the Internet, advertising what we do and how people can get involved. We have been able to draw a lot of attention to ourselves by consistently having dynamic content on our website. As our program constantly grows and develops, MASA hopes to plant firm roots at the University of Rochester and inspire other colleges and universities to do the same. The goal is to reach as many people as possible and keep our ideals alive.