She added to Ms. Smith’s portfolio an investigation of Ms. Epifano’s case, including a review of the conduct of Amherst administrators. On Friday, the school’s sexual assault counselor — who was portrayed negatively, though not by name, in Ms. Epifano’s article — resigned.

Among those who kept the issue alive last year, a soft-spoken but persistent student from St. Louis, Dana Bolger, played a pivotal role. Ms. Bolger, now a second-semester junior, said that after being raped, she left the school for a semester.

Last spring, she and a few other women created It Happens Here, a Web site about sexual violence at Amherst, and this month she drew a wide audience for two items she published on a student-run blog. In the first item, she wrote that last spring a fraternity printed T-shirts showing a woman being roasted like a pig on a spit but that those responsible were not disciplined. The second featured a photo essay of current and former Amherst students who said they had been sexually assaulted there, holding signs with insensitive comments they had heard from students and administrators.