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UNIVERSITY
University health officials warn of AIDS danger
By Jason Keuter
Emerald Contributor
College students shouldn't
forget the dangers of AIDS, suy
three University officials who
attended a summer conference
in San Diego titled "HIV Pre
vention Progress Through Co
operation."
Foremost among the topics
was how AIDS education could
he taught more effectively to
college students who have been
hearing less and less about
AIDS, despite the fact the dis
ease continues to spread, said
Jennie Koberlson. the Universi
ty’s assistant dean of students
Koberlson was one of the par
Help nils at the i onferenee
In addition to Rotxrrlson, Jo
anno Frank direr lor of the Peer
IF aith education Program, and
Judy Mi.ffi*11 nurse supervisor
a! the Student Health Center,
were jiiiuiii; soinr ol tJie purtic
:;iti,T• hum Pie t mvrrsity
i ! a I ' mvt-i ■ :! y‘s effort to ed •
Ui ate !ti.(It's . n AIDS is tiring
hampered by Measure 5 cuts,
which resulted in the sched
uled elimination ol the Univer
sily ■ Sr In a I and (iiiiiiiniinil v
Health department
Exacerbating tire problem is
the stigma that AIDS is a "gay
disease When politicians de
cide on funding for AIDS edu
r at ion and lev arch, they take
Ibis into a*count and the result
is almost inevitably detrimental
to edut .ition efforts, Robertson
said
Frank said the elimination of
the University's health depart
ment will causa many prob
lems First among these is the
elimination of the health re
quirement for graduation
The loss of this requirement
means that students will no
longer get much neodod infor
mation about AIDS, Frank said
There .ire no guarantees that
incoming freshmen received
adequate health education 111
high sc hool, she said, because
many sc hools have inadequate
or nonexistent health educa
tion programs
"AIDS educ ation is definitely
in a state of crisis," Frank said
The effec is from the elimina
tion of the health department
arc- being felt before the pro
gram is gone, Frank said In
particular, the Peer Health Ad
vising program is losing stu
dents because of the c uts
Health students are rushing
to fulfill their requirements be
fore the program is gone, so
electives like peer advising lose
students who are too busy tak
ing the health classes they need
to graduate " she said
Moffett said peer advising is
an important part of health ed
ucation on campus, because it
is important lor AIDS educators
to avoid sounding like a "nag
ging parent " At the confer
ence, Moffett said the greatest
concern among the participants
was the need to discover a lan
guage in which AIDS education
( an he taught without alienat
ing college students.
The behavior of college stu
dents makes them a group par
ticularly vulnerable to contract
ing HIV, Robertson said, “The
disease is still with us. and
people do know about it. but
the behavior hasn't changed."
Rois’rtson cited a University
survey taken spring 1990, in
which 47 5 percent of the stu
dents surveyed said that AIDS
had affected their sex lives and
:»9.7 percent said they didn’t
feel that they had enough
knowledge regarding AIDS
Of particular concern, Rob
ertson said, was the results on
sexual behavior Seventy-three
percent of the respondents said
they had engaged in vaginal,
oral, or anal sex during the year
preceding the survey, and 35.7
percent said they rarely or nev
er discuss their partner's sexual
health prior to intercourse
A student wanting to fit in,
wanting to experiment with
sex. and drug and alcohol use,
may feel uncomfortable voicing
concerns about HIV in a setting
where there's a lot of social
pressure, Robertson said.
Social pressures also discour
age student involvement in
AIDS education A student who
gets involved with AIDS educa
tion runs the risk of being so
dally stigmatized. It isn't
"cool" to bo part of an organi
zation educating students about
AIDS. Robertson said
"Heterosexuals have boon
made to think HIV does not
concern them,” Frank said
"How AIDS spread in Africa
should teach heterosexuals that
AIDS is their problem Ux>."
In fact, the spread of AIDS in
the Western World is increas
ingly conforming to the pattern
in Atrica, where the disease
spread first through the hetero
sexual community.
In the U S. the spread is de
creasing in the homosexual
community and increasing
among heterosexuals. Moffett
attributes the decline in the gay
community to awareness about
the disease, and the gay com
munity's efforts to educate it
self on how to stop the spread
of HIV.
"The spread of the disease is
related to behavior, not sexual
preference." Moffett said. "And
behavior can onlv be changed
through education."
"We re dealing with an invis
ible crisis,” Molfett said. "Be
cause of the disease's long in
cubation period, people think
there is no crisis because they
don’t see it. But AIDS is still
out there. People are still catch
ing it People are still spreading
it. And people are still dying
from it."
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