Lesli Marchese, Campus Carrier News Editor
According to the American Health Institute, 63 percent of chlamydia, syphilis and gonorrhea infections occur in people under the age of 25, and young women in their twenties account for one-third of all unintended pregnancies.
Some people attribute these high college pregnancy and sexually transmitted disease (STD) rates to the lack of holistic sexual education that students receive in high school and college.
At Berry, there is education available to students through the Health and Wellness Center, the Peer Educators and various campus programs. However, some students feel like there should be more.
“I see a lot of people asking questions about sexual health [on Yik Yak],” senior Grace Hopkins said. “They don’t know where to find the answers, and I think that’s definitely a need on campus.”
Hopkins and a group of other Bonner Scholars hosted a panel for students to ask anonymous questions about sexual health to professionals.
The panel was part of their Issue-Based group, a component of the Bonner program in which students address a prominent issue in their community and provide education and advocacy about their topic in small groups.
“I think Berry is lacking in letting students know what’s available to them,” Hopkins said. “They want to help if a student comes looking for it, but they don’t make it readily available, and it needs to be more of a conversation.”
Anita Errickson, the director of the Health and Wellness Center, said students can come to the Health and Wellness Center with their questions.
“If someone has questions about any topic, we do our best to educate on a one-on-one consultative level,” Errickson said. “We know there are lots of online resources and students often go online before coming to the health center.”
There are groups on campus that are committed to providing additional education and resources to students regarding sexual health, such as the Peer Educators and EMPOWER.
Sophomore Jacquelyn Bruun, a Peer Educator, believes that resources should be more easily accessible to students.
“They need to be offered more widely, so it’s something that students can access without embarrassment or without fear of being seen,” Bruun said. “We want to ensure that people are having sex in the best way possible to refrain from unwanted pregnancies or STDs or STIs.”
Debbie Heida, dean of students, believes that sexual education is an important topic to be addressed with students, but that Berry’s programming isn’t always reaching the students that most have a need for the information.
“I think that the education is usually there, but it has not necessarily been heard, so we assume people know more than they do because they’ve been talked at for 12 years,” Heida said. “The biggest question for us is, ‘when are students most likely to hear a message and engage in it?’”
Heida said that when Berry offers a program, the students that show up are often those that already have knowledge of the topic.
“Many times when we do a program, we’re preaching to the choir,” Heida said. “For example, usually, if we do a sexual assault program, 96 percent of the people who come are women and they’re already passionate about the topic, so we’re not always reaching the people who have a true need for information.”
There are services that Berry provides through the Health and Wellness Center, including testing for some major STDs.
“There are some STDs that can be tested here such as [gonorrhea] and Chlamydia,” Errickson said. “There is a lab fee for these services, but there is no charge for the visit.”
Some people have suggested adding sexual education to the list of topics to cover in BCC classes. Heida said that the class already has a very full curriculum, but administration is looking for new ways to reach students.
“We’ve been in discussion about … how we can be more expansive with how we do health information,” Heida said.
Lindsey Norman, assistant vice president for student affairs, restarted the Health and Wellness Committee this year, which hadn’t met for several years.
The charge for the committee states that it is an “advisory committee providing advice and counsel on the college’s health and wellness programs for students, faculty and staff. The committee is specifically charged with ensuring campus education on sexual misconduct, substance use and abuse (alcohol, tobacco and other drugs), bullying and stalking.”
Norman said that she is adding sexual health as a topic that the committee will discuss.
Hopkins believes that it should be more important for the campus as a whole to make sexual education and resources more widely available.
“I think it’s important for administration and for the campus as a whole to promote an open dialogue about sexual health, because I think it’s a very relevant issue to college-aged students,” Hopkins said. “I usually see things regarding sexual health happening through student organizations which indicates to me that there’s an interest in these topics, but I think it’s important for administration to play a part too.”