Point Park’s United Student Government (USG) officially turned an offhand, joking comment into a reality at its Monday meeting when it voted to advertise its new Condom Initiative and move forward with plans to make condoms more readily available to students.
In the near future, condoms will be available on the security desks of all Point Park residence halls. In Lawrence and Academic Halls, which serve as public spaces as well as residence areas, the condoms will only be made available after ID checks are put in place.
Robert Bertha, a sophomore broadcast production major and the School of Communication’s senator in USG, initially informally proposed the initiative as a joke. But when he told some friends about the idea for a Condom Initiative, their enthusiasm for the idea was genuine.
“Students are going to have sex no matter what. All you can do is make sure they’re having safe sex,” Bertha said.
So on Oct. 15 he met with the school nurse, who agreed that it makes sense to encourage students to have safe sex and who already offers condoms in her office.
“She purchases condoms for her office, so she already has a direct line to Trojan,” Bertha said.
On Monday, Bertha met with Point Park’s Chief of Police, Jeffrey Besong, to discuss putting the condoms in bowls on the security desks. Besong also approved of the idea, with the stipulation of waiting until ID checks start to offer the condoms.
The condoms will be funded by health services.
Also at the meeting Vice President of Operations Chris Hill discussed recent changes the physical plant has made, including the inception of the shuttle tracking service and the recent installation of the interactive displays at various on-campus sites.
He then addressed the subject of many Point Park complaints: elevators.
Hill said that a service called Lift-Net has allowed him to track elevator wait times and the number of times the elevator is called.
Hill recommended that students could help to cut down on elevator wait times, which can reach as much as five minutes during peak hours, by not taking the elevator when they only have to go up or down one flight of stairs.
In order to encourage students to take the stairs, Hill said the physical plant department has made improvements to the stairwells, including painting them and improving the lighting in them.
Additionally, he is looking at moving classrooms down from the upper floors of West Penn and into the currently-unused annex space in that building.
He asked for USG’s help in spreading the word.
“We’re trying to help you guys help us,” Hill said.
USG offered to motivate students to take the stairs by making directional signs to point people to the stairs and using word-of-mouth advertising.
“If me and six other students are standings by an elevator in West Penn, you could say, ‘I’ll race you guys down the stairwell,’” said Gabe Dubin, USG’s Vice President.
USG also approved a new Tap Club, which will meet twice a month for tap lessons available to everyone, not just dance majors.
