Members of Students Educating Peers About Sex are seeking support to keep the student organization afloat because the Student Health Center cut all ties with the group Feb. 10.
UNM student Jeremy Jaramillo, Students Educating Peers About Sex president, accused representatives of the Student Health Center of forcefully taking over the program, firing employees and unfairly removing it from its health center offices.
“They were taking over all of our daily activities, changing all our forms, changing our recruitment forms, changing our mission and we were compromising a lot with them,” he said. “We basically said, ‘You can’t do this to us anymore, you have to collaborate with us; you get the last say because you’re our boss, you get the last say because you’re our faculty advisor, but you have to at least ask us for some feedback’ — and then that next Monday they said, ‘We don’t want to be your sponsor anymore.’”
Student Health Center Director Olga Eaton said in a written statement that Jaramillo and Shirlee James Johnson, the new health education manager and former student group sponsor, had policy disagreements.
Eaton said because the disagreements could not be resolved, Johnson decided it would be better to withdraw as the sponsor and let the student group select a new sponsor that it agreed with more.
Johnson declined to comment on that subject but said the Student Health Center is continuing to keep students involved with a variety of different programs.
Eaton said the Student Health Center was not trying to take over the Students Educating Peers About Sex program in any way.
“On the contrary, we stepped aside as their sponsor so that they would be free of any of our policies,” Eaton wrote.
The student group, which provides trained peer educators on sexual health, birth control, sexually transmitted diseases and nonconsentual sex, is asking students to sign a petition in support of the peer education program receiving funding and sufficient office space.
The petition states, “I want SEPAS, not the Student Health Center, to provide me with education on sexual health and relationships.”
Jaramillo said he will present the petition to the undergraduate student government and UNM administrators, including Eliseo Torres, the vice president for student affairs whose responsibilities include supervising the Student Health Center. He added that he would also like to show the petition to state legislators.
He said the group will need more than $20,000 to continue to run the organization as it has for the past eight years and to pay a new adviser.
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“If we don’t get public support, we probably can’t function because the amount of money we need is higher than ASUNM can fund us,” he said. “ASUNM funds us about $2,500 a year usually.”
Eaton responded by saying that the peer education group’s funding has always come from the Associated Students of UNM Senate, which distributes undergraduate student fees.
“The SHC has no input in that process,” she said.
Jaramillo said after the student group was removed from the Student Health Center, the newly established Peer Educators Program was set up in its former office. He said the Peer Educators Program is a way for the health center to control information students receive and feels the new program will take options away from students.
He said one of the things he is worried about is that the Student Health Center hasn’t wanted to cover sexual identity issues in the past, but Students Educating Peers About Sex had stepped in and done that. He is also concerned that the Student Health Center might only promote abstinence.
Eaton countered that the health center will continue to provide education through its new program and will not limit information to students.
“The SHC has a commitment to provide accurate and useful health education to students and we will continue, as in the past, to actively recruit and train students to be peer educators around the issues of sex, sexually transmitted disease, family planning, interpersonal communication and preventing nonconsentual sex,” she wrote.
Eaton said the Student Health Center is expanding its program this year to include substance use and abuse, stress management and nutrition. She said she feels it is the health center’s responsibility to “assure that the students are trained to give accurate information in a sensitive and professional manner.”
“So essentially, even though SEPAS has chosen to remove itself from a connection with the SHC, we will make sure that the Peer Education Program for students continues and is viable,” she wrote.
Eaton added that the Student Health Center plans to have a new peer education class starting within the next month.
