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H 81°, L 62°For the many students living in University of Wisconsin residence halls, house fellows act as a resource and beacon of guidance. However, University Housing’s recent decision to clamp down on condom distribution by house fellows has left many wondering why.
Contrary to popular belief, house fellows could never give condoms to residents, Associate Resident Life Director Larry Davis said.
In summer 2010, Housing was informed the Campus Women’s Center was providing condoms to house fellows to give to residents, Davis said.
Housing initially thought only a handful of dorms were involved, but after some investigating they realized staff at many residence halls received condoms from CWC.
Davis said housing officials decided to make it clear providing condoms to residents is not part of a house fellow’s job.
Building community and providing support for students are what House Fellows are required to do, Davis said, and to ask house fellows to hand out condoms — a non-housing activity, according to Davis — “isn’t a good use of our time.”
Liability is also a concern for Housing, Davis said. Over the summer they were informed by Risk Management that issues could arise if house fellows provided condoms to residents.
These issues include an unwanted pregnancy or sexually transmitted disease from a defective condom, but Davis said no student has ever sued Housing for such reasons.
In addition, condoms are considered an item related to a student’s health, which house fellows are not allowed to administer, Davis added. House fellows cannot give students aspirin.
Should house fellows feel their residents need condoms, they can advise students to visit CWC, Sex Out Loud or other campus agencies that provide free condoms, Davis said.
They can also invite Sex Out Loud to do a safe-sex program for their residents and if the organization distributes condoms, that would be fine.
While some house fellows have said they would be willing to sacrifice extra time to hand out condoms, Davis said it simply is not in their job description, and house fellows need to comply.
“In their role as a house fellow, we have a right to tell them what they can and can’t do,” Davis said.
UW senior and House Fellow Jeff Eversman said the restriction did not come up until a returning staff member asked about the issue.
“It’s unfortunate,” he said. “I understand the reasoning behind the decision…but it’s still a resource that would be nice to distribute when necessary.”
In addition, Eversman said he never would have thought to ask his house fellow for a condom when he was a freshman.
As of yet, Eversman has not been approached by residents for condoms, and if someone does ask, he will direct them to vending machines within the residence hall.
After recently finding out about the restriction, CWC Programming Director Rae Lymer said she was upset, especially because as someone who lived in the residence halls, “it’s one of those things where I know that it happens.”
More importantly though, Lymer said Housing is acting as a barrier for students who want to be responsible about sex.
“[Housing is] denying students access to safe sex supplies,” Lymer said.
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Having worked as a house fellow/RA in a UW Housing residence hall on campus, I can attest and agree with Eversman in that an extremely low percentage of residents would stop by their house fellow’s room at 2:00 am for a condom. Countless residents did, however, stop by in a biweekly basis to pick up condoms “just in case.”
A considerable number of sexual encounters for underclassmen (and unfortunately our student population in general) occurs under the influence of alcohol in an unpredictable manner (the “Oh, I decided to stay over at her/his place…then one thing led to another” case). How many students would recall the vending machines in “the heat of the moment” or even have $1.00 on them at 2:00 am? It is also naive to believe drunken hormonal college students will not have unprotected sex when they realize they do not have that $1.00 bill on them.
From my experiences as a UW student, and also as a house fellow, I know few residents will go out of their way to the CWC, Sex-Out-Loud, LGBTQ campus center, or any other campus resources to pick up condoms [the alternative to the policy presented here]. A thirty minute walk from the Bradley Learning Community to any of these campus buildings is definitely not one of the things a freshman will do during that first weekend in Madison. How many freshmen know where those places are in their first semester of school anyway?
It is important to note, additionally, that house fellows never walked around residence halls handing out condoms. Condoms were made available to residents if they wanted them and also in an anonymous manner (usually in a “condom bowl” in the house fellow’s room). I also found that many residents had questions about general sexual health, and that it was my job as their resource to inform them or send them towards the appropriate campus resources (UHS or other services) that could answer such questions. Many times these conversations were sparked by the awkward “You have condoms in your room?!” moments. There are countless things, like checking for an expiration date or an air pocket in a condom, that your average freshman or sophomore may not know.
A large amount of what you hear as a house fellow in training and as a staff member revolves around the role, as Larry Davis mentioned, of building a community and providing students with support. What was not mentioned here, however, is that we were told that, under any and every situation, “a student’s safety comes first”. The textbook example being “Yes you will make your resident upset and disrupt your community by calling UWPD to evaluate a resident [perhaps sending him or her to detox]. Yes, we do want you to do that. And yes, you may also be saving that resident’s life.”
Hearing about UW housing’s permanent prohibition/enforcement of this policy is worrisome and, in a way, disappointing. I understand and acknowledge the risk of having University Housing employees such as house fellows, who have not received specialized training in sexual health, “providing” contraceptives to residents. Retracting such resources from students, however, is not the answer. While I agree that the system cannot be exactly what it was before, student safety must come first.
Though it may seem that this only affects those students living in the residence halls today, we must understand that this policy can and will become a health issue for the whole UW Madison campus in the years to come. Let’s do something about it today.
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Would it be possible to get around this issue if there was a mandatory training for all housefellows by Sex Out Loud? That way they could give some basic condom use information to students. As for housefellows, they are also students and therefore if they want to have a large supply of condoms, I don’t see what the problem is. Or have a student take on the duty of keeping a condom bowl stocked outside of their room. It’s absurd that housing has intervened so much with this issue. It is disappointing.