On Monday, the Emerald published a story regarding the University’s failing grade for sexual health education and resources. The article was met with concern from both students and administrators and, since then, details regarding the nature and validity of the study have come to light.
There are, in fact, good sexual health resources at the University, contrary to the recently published findings.
The Trojan-sponsored study was conducted solely via the Internet, extrapolating the information posted on university Web pages to create an inaccurate representation of a campus’ sexual health resources.
By negating the actual existence of sexual health resources on campuses like the University’s, Trojan and Sperling’s Best Places, the research firm that conducted the study, published what amounted to an irresponsible and inaccurate publicity stunt for Trojan, disguised as legitimate research.
It’s important to always view corporate-backed research initiatives with a healthy degree of skepticism. By publishing this study, Trojan was able to gain some crucial market exposure on college campuses across the country. Unfortunately for those campuses, the study was deeply flawed and inaccurate.
Students, your sexual heath needs have been sufficiently addressed. It’s just that these resources are largely inaccessible on the Internet, the means by which most of this generation gets a majority of its information today and the basis by which this survey was compiled. The University received a 1.3 GPA on our Sexual Health Report Card, according to the study. But that’s because the graders did a lazy job in their research.
Nevertheless, our Health Center should beef-up its Web page. But students should know that there are accessible sexual health resources on campus and the Health Center does devote a more than appropriate amount of care to these issues.
For example, the study gave the University an ‘F’ in condom availability, a completely undeserved grade. Free condoms are widely available to all students through the health center, a range of student advocacy groups and periodic awareness events on campus. The Health Center provides services for STD testing, contraception and employs a strong sexual assault service program. Sadly, the Trojan study led students believe otherwise.
Our recommendation for the health center is this: Revamp the Web page. Make the information easily accessible for students. For any given sexual issue or concern we might have, we should be able to browse the Health Center Web site and determine what we need and where we need to go to get it. It’s important to post information where people go to view it, otherwise it’s useless. Let this be a lesson to the Health Center to keep up with the times.
Nevertheless, we thank the Health Center for actually having these sexual resources in place and hope they only continue to expand.