By ASIA EWART
Staff Writer
In an environment like a college campus, it’s important for the relationships between students to be both healthy and supportive. As students strive for a degree in their desired fields, some will be lifting each other up and maintaining a sense of community.
These feelings carry over into more personal territory: that of rallying against sexual assault, harassment, and types of discrimination; all ugly, but very real situations that exist on many campuses. In an effort to address both healthy and unhealthy behaviors in relationships, Terri St. George, an assistant director of Counseling & Psychological Services, and Mary Fitzsimmons, who works with HEOP program, have put together Saint Rose’s Sexuality Week.
“The idea grew out of discussions we were having in Project STOP committee meetings, … chaired by our campus Title IX Coordinator, Dennis McDonald,” St. George explained about the event’s genesis. “[We wanted to] address issues on campus related to violence against women, sexual assault, harassment, and stalking. The group wanted to move its efforts forward and expand the focus from raising awareness and prevention of things we don’t want, to promoting healthy behaviors. If we as a college are trying to reduce and eliminate violence and discrimination, we also need to consider what it is we are aiming for: developing healthy and safe relationships and creating a healthy and safe campus community.”
The Sexuality Week committee, composed of various students and faculty members, including Area Coordinator for Residence Life Alex Aust, and Assistant Director of Counseling & Psychological Services Alan Martell, sought potential topics via polls held in the classes of a colleague. The responses given were very diverse, but important all the same.
“Many of the students indicated that they would like to see more programming on campus around GLBTQ issues and contraception and STDs,” St. George said, of the results, which would go on to have a place in Sexuality Week. “Overall, the responses were wide ranging; everything from questions about sexual anatomy and performance and how to be a better lover/partner, to questions about values and decision making; morality; healthy relationships; pornography addiction; hook-up culture; alternative sexual practices, and more.”
The week began on April 10 with the “Take Back the Night” march, done to bring awareness to sexual violence, at Albany Law School. April 14 is a tabling day in the EAC; there will be information available to students about bystander intervention. April 15, during the day, is a program centered on consent; free hugs will be given to students to educate them on asking for and giving consent.
That evening, G4G will be holding a student-led discussion on women portrayed in the media, double standards, and the effects of it all on self-esteem. The final, and largest, event will be on April 16, at 7 p.m. in Standish A & B, called “Let’s Talk About Sex.”
The set up will be a Q & A session with a panel of experts, from faculty members to community professionals, who will be covering a range of topics, from relationships to sexual health to sexuality in general.
“Holding a college Sexuality Week can be risky. It’s a topic that not everyone is comfortable with, and it is a topic that some people may think is not worthy of examination in an academic setting,” St. George said, on the goals for the event. “But from a wellness perspective, as student affairs professionals, we are interested in educating the ‘whole’ person; and a person’s sexual and interpersonal development is as relevant to their well-being and functioning as is their emotional, physical, intellectual, and spiritual development. Our week, ‘Celebrating Sexuality,’ is not about throwing the topic of sex in people’s faces in a provocative and gratuitous way (the media already does that); rather, it’s about examining relevant issues in a thoughtful and critical manner.”
Amongst the knowledge to be taken away from Sexuality Week? St. George has a few words to remind students.
“We would like for the entire campus to take away the message that the topic of sexuality need not be a taboo topic on campus,” St. George said. “It is a topic that is relevant and meaningful to the lives of students and to the entire campus community.”
