Twelve years ago the first poster campaign through the Campus Involvement Center, “Bring Your Own Judgment,” flopped. Since then, the office has learned student input is essential.
“What we learned from the initial campaign is that we need to involve students in the wording we used,” said Char Kopchick, assistant dean of students for Campus Involvement.
The Campus Involvement Center and Health Promotion create poster campaigns that tackle topics such as sober sex, STIs and prescription drug abuse. The posters are hung up in residence halls and handed out to houses on Mill Street, Palmer Street, Hocking Street, Oak Street, Shafer Street and Elliott Street.
Terry Koons, associate director for Health Promotion, said the posters are all student generated.
“People don’t really read their email,” Koons said. “The posters are designed to make people more aware of the choices they are making.”
Kopchick said one way to gauge the success of the posters is if residence assistants come back to the center for more. She added that even if students are hanging them in their rooms as a joke the message is still received.
“What we’re doing now is doing more focus groups to look at what are ways in which we can encourage people to not make a choice of sexual activity while they are impaired,” Koons said. “It could lead to a sexual assault or a violation or negative consequences like an STI or an unwanted pregnancy.”
Sarah Tucker Jenkins, program coordinator of the Women’s Center, said when alcohol is involved in sex, it exacerbates the problem of sexual assault.
“We commonly see alcohol in movies and TV lubricating social situations,” Jenkins said. “The truth is that this type of behavior is dangerous and can quickly lead to rape.”
The two focus groups held showed that women have the opinion that men would rather have sex regardless of the risk of an STI and that men believed women engaging in sexual activity must be taking oral contraception, Koons said.
The Involvement Center tries to deal with the reality of the students and find out what language is going to resonate with them, Kopchick said. This year’s slogan is: “Sober sex. Try it, you’ll like it.”
“When those (sober sex) posters came out, there was a discussion at the Board of Trustees meeting over the posters because someone said they were promoting students having sex,” she said. “Some of our students choose to have sex under the influence and we want to make sure students avoid those situations.”
There is nothing done at the Campus Involvement Center without focus groups or surveys, Kopchick said.
“Who knows better what students want than students?” she said.
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