The numbers are astonishing, and at first glance, unbelievable. A Justice Department study found that one in five women will be raped during their time in college, and only 5 percent of the victims will report it. At this university, there are 17,000 female students. By those numbers, as many as 3,400 might be raped by the time they graduate.

These numbers aren’t new. The Justice Department study came out almost a decade ago, and reports of high levels of rape on college campuses have been common for at least 30 years. What is new is that people — at least at this university — are doing something about it.

Much of the credit for this must go to a group of enterprising journalism students. Two years ago, Terp Weekly Edition, a radio program produced by the journalism school, released “Out of the Shadows,” an in-depth report on campus rape. The report won multiple awards, including a Robert F. Kennedy Award for investigative journalism.

The report inspired journalism professor and University Senator Deb Nelson to ask the Senate to investigate the issue this semester. The Senate’s Campus Affairs Committee held a forum focusing on rape last week.

Sue Kopen Katcef, who teaches the class that produces Terp Weekly Edition, pointed out that change will take time and that right now, the most important thing is to highlight the issue and build momentum toward forcing the university to make changes. After all, she said, no university wants to highlight the fact that there are rapes on its campus.

But there’s a difference between good public relations and good public policy. One protects reputations, and the other protects students. And since this is a national problem, being known as a school willing to tackle the issue will help the university in the long run.

One step in making this shift came last week, when the university agreed to release the names of students found responsible for sexual assault by the university judiciary. When those names are released, it should provide a more accurate count of the number of sexual assaults that have happened on the campus in recent years, but even then, it’s hard to imagine they’ll be a full account.

At the forum held last week, undergraduate senator Julia Burke pointed out the university judiciary only has jurisdiction in rapes involving current students that happen on the campus. Though Knox Boxes and South Campus Commons are only a few yards away, the difference in possible punishments can’t be measured. And students victimized off the campus won’t be recognized.

Most of the forum’s discussion focused on date rape: More than 90 percent of college women are raped by someone they know. But those aren’t the assaults that make the evening news or that are generally reported to authorities.

The conviction of Derik Villeda-Morales, who abducted and raped a university student last year, made headlines and led local newscasts. But cases like Villeda-Morales’ are rare. As opposed to most serious crimes around the campus — burglaries, assaults and robberies — that are committed by people unaffiliated with the university, rape is an on-campus problem, and there are university-based solutions to it. And the university is finally talking about them.

What exactly those solutions are is unclear. Basic steps are obvious but still require additional resources. Prompted by a question from STARE Party candidate Natalia Cuadra-Saez in The Diamondback’s Student Government Association presidential debate, SKY Party candidate Andrew Steinberg suggested expanding the sexual assault training fraternities go through each semester to all students. But the Sexual Assault Response and Prevention Program has a minuscule staff, and the university didn’t even have a full-time advocate for sexual assault victims until two years ago. A good first step would be to increase the services we already have, an obviously difficult step in this fiscal climate. Still, there aren’t many student services more important than protecting students from sexual assault.

Kopen Katcef said the Terp Weekly Edition piece was titled “Out of the Shadows” for a reason. For too long, rape has been an underreported and ignored issue both nationally and at this university. It’s been said sunlight is the best disinfectant. Let’s hope for this campus, it is.