Student Health Services officials will reconsider offering sexual health seminars after a temporary suspension this year.
Until this year, students seeking gynecological services at Hudson Health Center for the first time were required to attend a two-hour sexual health seminar. Amid student complaints and diminishing numbers of attendees, Health Promotions ' the office that conducts the seminars ' temporarily discontinued the sessions.
Upon investigations into the complaints, the Sexual Health Seminar Review Committee found that many students felt that the sexual health seminars were not offered at convenient times.
The committee was formed after a female student voiced complaints about Hudson's policies for students seeking prescription contraceptives and gynecological services in October 2006. Graduate Student Senate also passed a resolution last winter asking Ohio University to make information on Hudson Health Center's Web site about waiving the seminars more accessible.
Brittany Buxton, one of the three members of Graduate Student Senate that served on the committee, said that many graduate students felt they didn't need the seminars because of their age. In order to waive the seminar, she said students were forced to give up even more time by speaking with the gynecological staff, which was why they were waiving it in the first place.
The main problem was
from my point of view and the view of my constituents the seminars Buxton said. The committee really took all of that into account.-
the Web site was kind of obscure
and it was hard to find information about the seminars and about women's health in general
she said.
Now, the Web site has lots of information that wasn't there before
McSteen added, including topics varying from sexually transmitted diseases to counseling and psychological services to high risk drinking.
There is also now a direct link to the Web site from the OU Students page, making it more accessible to students, something that Buxton said was one of the main concerns of Graduate Student Senate.
I think the goals (of the committee) were definitely met
she said.
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