Playing hard to get
Condoms are available on campus,
but only through Wellness Center
By KELSEY BLACKWELL
UNIVERSITY JOURNAL
SUU administrators like to think of the university as
an institution that encourages self-expression and forward
thinking, but when it comes to promoting “safe sex,”
some say the prevailing attitude is far too conservative.
Evan Wilcock, a senior communication major from Cedar
City and chairman for Utah’s southwest region of
the National AIDS Foundation, is pushing to change the
current policy on condom distribution at SUU.
The policy, adopted in 1996, prohibits the disbursement
of condoms by anyone but the Wellness Center.
“Students with concerns regarding personal health
matters are encouraged to visit with the professional
health personnel at the university’s Health Service
Center(s),” the policy says. “This is the
only location on campus where condoms may be dispensed.”
Wilcock said he believes the current policy placates those
with more conservatives views on campus but infringes
on other students’ abilities to obtain materials
and information that promote safe sex.
“It’s ridiculous,” Wilcock said. “They’re
not even readily available in the Wellness Center, and
we’re not allowed to advertise to let students know
they’re there.”
Wilcock said he hopes to make condoms more accessible
to students through the Wellness Center and hopes to do
away with the current constraint that students must ask
for condoms from the receptionist or Kay Messerly, director
of the Wellness Center.
Messerly said she requires students to ask for condoms
so she may counsel them on their proper use.
“We don’t just have a box of them on the table,”
she said. “Students can come and ask for one from
either me or the receptionist.”
In contrast, Utah State University and the University
of Utah allow students to take condoms freely from a bowl
in the universities’ health service centers.
“We keep them in a big bucket or basket so students
can have as many as they want,” said Tristan Stone,
health services receptionist at the University of Utah.
Some SUU students said they avoid going to the Wellness
Center for fear of being lectured on abstinence before
obtaining a condom.
“I never thought about going to the Wellness Center,”
said Dulani Jackson, a senior criminal justice major from
Anaheim, Calif. “I heard they question your motives
when you go. I’m saying I’m a grown man; I
know what I’m getting into.”
Messerly said as far as she knows, it has never been a
policy to question students or promote abstinence before
handing out condoms.
“I see it as a health issue, not a moral issue,”
Messerly said. “They’re not coming here to
ask my permission.”
However, Wilcock also said he has heard complaints from
students who said they were warned to abstain from having
sex before receiving condoms.
“Students have told me they’ve got a lecture
on abstinence when they tried to get condoms,” he
said.
Wilcock said by amending the policy, he also hopes to
give students and faculty the option of making condoms
available if the subject or situation presents itself
in classes or student-run booths“We should be able
to give out condoms at the Health Fair or classes about
AIDS on campus,” he said.
USU and U of U both have more lenient policies concerning
who
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PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY
ERIN MADSON / UNIVERSITY JOURNAL
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may disburse condoms.
Jim Davis, a doctor and director of USU Student Health Services,
said he has tossed condoms into crowds to get students’
attention.
“If a student wants to hand them out, I don’t
know of anything that would (prevent) that,” he said.
“It just depends on the discretion of the individual
professor.”
Wilcock is currently working with Neal Cox, assistant vice
president for student services, and Georgia Beth Thompson,
vice president for
student services, in hopes of bringing about a policy change.
However, neither Cox nor Thompson is sure a change is needed.
Cox said he would like to see condoms more readily dispersed
to students in the Wellness Center.
“It may not be the policy that needs to change,”
Cox said. “We just may implement it a little differently.
It may change; it may not.”
Cox said the current policy does not prohibit condoms from
being kept in a bowl for easier student access at the Wellness
Center, but he said he is in favor of controlling who can
pass out condoms.
“It doesn’t make sense to have anything randomly
passed out on campus,” he said. “If anyone was
allowed to do whatever they wanted, we would have absolute
chaos.”
Cox said that while he does want to make condoms more available,
he believes he’s “in the middle of the road”
because he does not want SUU to appear overly liberal with
a new policy.
“There are some that may argue that by being overly
available we’re encouraging promiscuity,” he
said.
Thompson said she agrees with Wilcock that the current policy
may be too conservative and is willing to look at it again.
“When it was adopted in 1996, it was comfortable,”
she said. “We’re going to look at Evan’s
proposal.” |
