Students prompt changes to Hudson Sexual Health Seminar

Students demanded changes last fall, and now they have the sexual health information they need. After complaints from one graduate student at an Ohio University Town Hall meeting, the Graduate Student Senate set a deadline for the Hudson Health Center to improve its website by March 28th.

"We knew we needed to get it done, and when students said 'it is an issue for us,' it happened," says Director of Health Education and Wellness Char Kopchick. The graduate student's main complaint was over Hudson's policy on gynecological exams. First time users of Hudson's gynecological services are required to attend a sexual health seminar, but students didn't know the seminar's schedule and that they could get a waiver from attending them.

The Hudson Health Center's website now has information on the seminar's schedule and information on obtaining a waiver.

"I think what we're doing right now is the best that we could do," said Kopchick. "And that's making people aware of our services first of all, aware of the waiver option and then by next fall, piloting and trying the two tier seminar approach."

This two-tier seminar approach would offer separate seminars based on the specific health care need. The sexual health seminars discuss topics like the gynecological exam, the self-breast exam, basic reproductive anatomy, sexually transmitted infections and methods of contraception, and other reproductive health services are offered.

Kopchick talks more about the two-tier program and who might be elligible for a waiver.