The campaign to raise the profile of Domestic Violence Awareness Month encourages public, private and non-profit entities to embrace the color purple -- the symbolic hue for domestic violence awareness -- by shining purple lights on buildings or other structures in their community, wearing purple or sponsoring awareness events.

LED lighting technology associated with SUNY Oswego's large exterior signs allows college officials to specify non-standard colors for special occasions. The color purple will shine in a dawn-to-dusk display.

The college also is asking all employees and students to join the state Office for the Prevention of Domestic Violence's call for New Yorkers to wear purple on Wednesday, Oct. 21, to help generate discussion and awareness of domestic violence and dating abuse.

SUNY Oswego is engaging the topic of domestic violence in other ways in October, said Title IX coordinator Lisa Evaneski. Students are taking part in the domestic violence victims' advocacy Silent Witness Initiative on the academic quad, the train-the-trainer program of One Love.org and an information event on Marano Campus Center's concourse with a Services to Aid Families advocate.

Elsewhere among awareness initiatives this month, the State University Plaza building in Albany will join many structures statewide bathed in purple lights, according to Chancellor Nancy L. Zimpher.

More information on New York state's "Shine the Light on Domestic Violence" campaign is available at opdv.ny.gov. For more information on the college's own sexual and domestic violence initiatives, visit oswego.edu/title-ix.