Newspaper Editorials
By: Tanner Cole
Tags: Alcohol, Students, Transgender, Opinion

As the opinion editor for Western Kentucky University’s student newspaper, it was my responsibility to write weekly editorials for the opinion page.

Here are three:

Sex Education

The Issue: WKU dropped 20 spots on Trojan Condoms’ annual ranking of university sexual health.

Our Stance: WKU needs to find its way around the bedroom.

American universities are ranked based on their sexual health policies every year, and this year WKU dropped from 64th to 84th. Needless to say, the new ranking doesn’t bode well for anybody’s Big Red.

WKU is officially the least sexually healthy university in the state on Trojan’s ranking. Even Middle Tennessee State University is beating us now that they’ve shed a few slots to reach No. 69. The University of Louisville is making the Hill look like a raging pit of unprotected sex with its cozy spot at No. 16, and the University of Kentucky is giving WKU smug looks at No. 48.

The university isn’t necessarily dropping because of negative changes at WKU. Melissa Smith, a public relations representative for the ranking, said that most of the ranking changes come from universities stepping up their sexual health center.

The ranking means WKU has been sitting idle on sexual health improvements for a couple years now. This is actually the second year in a row that WKU dropped in the ranking — last year we shed five spots.

WKU needs to start catching up before we’re left in the lube-covered dust of more progressive schools.

Condoms are available from health educators on one side of the Health Services Building. However, those condoms are only available during their limited hours Monday through Friday. WKU needs condom distribution stations around campus, and they desperately need to be available on the weekend. The Downing Student Union, with its long hours even on weekends, would be an excellent place to hand out free rubbers.

Groups like Gender and Woman Studies hand out condoms and information on campus occasionally. WKU can’t just leave sexual health to a handful of Hilltoppers.

There may be a greater disconnect between WKU administration and our newly privatized Health Services than there has been in the past. That said, WKU needs to let Grave Gilbert Clinic know that its their responsibility to actively promote sexual health on campus and get information out to students.

WKU’s Stall Street Journal is a great way of getting out the word about free STD testing, but free testing days need to be broadcasted all over the Hill. Hearing about the testing should be unavoidable, and going to get tested needs to be culturally accepted and encouraged.

Kentucky is providing about 1.8 percent of all teenage pregnancies in the entire country, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. With its declining sexual health ranking, WKU isn’t doing its part to help change teenage pregnancy statistics in Kentucky.

We need to keep pregnancy rates low and graduation rates high. But if WKU starts pushing safe sex, then our health ranking doesn’t have to be the only thing rising.

Transgender Rights

The Issue: WKU isn’t providing proper support for transgender students.

Our Stance: The administration needs to make transgender students a priority, and students need to continue demanding it.

WKU hosts an incredibly diverse student body, but every student has at least a few things in common. We all had to apply to study at WKU, we all use the bathroom and we all have a gender identity.

Unfortunately, when a prospective student is filling out their application they have to choose between male, female and no response. When they look for a restroom, they find single-stall utilities labeled by a gender binary.

The Campus Pride Index recently rated WKU as 2.5 out of 5 stars for LGBT-friendly policies. This is behind every other rated university in the state.

That rating is at odds with another rating of WKU by advocate.com. WKU was chosen as one of the seven bravest schools in the south due to the prevalence of student activism on campus. Student Identity Outreach, Gender and Women’s Studies and other organizations on the Hill do a great job of demanding policy change.

These opposing ratings raise a big question. If our students are organizing and clamoring for non-discriminatory policies, why aren’t those changes being made?

Our rating from the Campus Pride Index is based on several factors, but most have to do with the fact that WKU seems to refuse to formalize any policy regarding transgender students.

There isn’t a formal housing process for students existing outside the binary. Campus records don’t recognize that transgender students exist. Faculty and staff receive no training on the issue, and many have no idea what pronouns to use with their students. Some aren’t aware that it’s even an issue they need to consider.

TopNet should offer students the option to set their preferred pronouns. Professors would receive the information along with their class rosters.

Unfortunately, WKU hasn’t made transgender students a priority yet. President Gary Ransdell recently reached out to Student Identity Outreach President Andrew Salman for advice on improving the university’s policies. It might be a step in the right direction, but we won’t know until changes are seen.

None of the needed changes would require much effort on the university’s part. These changes should be happening as soon as possible. In fact, WKU could look to the University of Louisville, which received a perfect score of five stars, as a guide for policy changes.

Students need to make sure that Ransdell doesn’t push transgender rights to the bottom of his to-do list alongside pressing matters such as the entertainment of alumni donors.

This needs to be a priority. These changes need to happen now, while we have the fuel to make them happen.

Students should take the results of the Campus Pride Index and use them. They should email housing administrators and ask what formalized process WKU has for housing transgender students. When Ransdell emails his requests for tailgate attendance, students should reply with an email asking him to formally recognize that WKU students control their identity.

Do it, because in the United States, 46 percent of trans men and 42 percent of trans women have attempted suicide, according to a study by the Williams Institute and the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. Compare that to the national average rate of 4.6 percent.

WKU needs to support its transgender students, and the student body needs to demand it.

Alcohol on Campus

The Issue: The Student Government Association is considering a resolution to bring alcohol to campus.

Our Stance: The change makes sense. Let the beer flow.

It’s been a rough week for Johnny Topper. He’s had to stay up late every night preparing for tests, finishing projects and just trying to make it through college.

But now, Mr. Topper just finished his last class of the day and he’s plopped himself down in a bar stool at RedZone.

It’s the weekend, and he’s going to celebrate with a nice, cold beer.

WKU has a complicated relationship with alcohol. Ever since 2012, Hilltoppers can buy beer on campus — but only on game days. Tailgating days open campus to a world of joyous drinking. President Gary Ransdell even sends out emails urging students to tailgate.

Yet every other day of the school year, a perfectly legal, at least 21-year-old student could be arrested for drinking on campus.

Luckily for WKU students, SGA could be the taking the first step in changing that policy, according to SGA senator Jody Dahmer, one of the bill’s sponsors.

A resolution is being debated that would allow the selling and consumption of alcohol on campus. What it needs is student support.

The change would obviously mean a lot of fun for Hilltoppers, but there are plenty of practical reasons why the policy is a no-brainer.

Students at WKU drink. There isn’t any stopping that. Currently, most students head off campus to get their alcoholic fix. Sadly, the trip back to their dorms can prove dangerous for dozens of students every semester.

Since the beginning of August, the WKU Police Department has reported 31 DUI arrests and 27 public intoxication arrests. Those numbers might be different if fewer students were leaving the Hill in the name of booze.

WKU wouldn’t even be alone in embracing on-campus drinking. Earlier this year, the University of Kentucky decided to allow alcohol to be served and consumed on their campus. Their motivation was moving the inevitable partying closer to both campus and the safety of its dorms.

It isn’t just Kentucky schools making the change either. Just 24 percent of surveyed schools prohibited all possession of alcohol on campus compared to 32 percent in 2005, according to the American Journal of Health Studies.

Beyond simple accident prevention, the university has a lot of potential financial gains to make just by green-lighting brews. With all the recent budget cuts and financial headaches at WKU, it makes sense to institute such an obvious moneymaker.

WKU obviously flirts with the idea of selling alcohol. RedZone is a sports bar without an alcohol menu. There is a literal bar inside. Why not start using it? The history department is even hosting a class this semester in which students will brew their own beer. WKU has a wine-tasting class, and there is even such a thing as the WKU winery.

The point is WKU already enjoys plenty of alcohol. If residents of the Hill decide to make a push, the WKU student body can make this happen.

To show your support, tweet at @WKUSGA and include the hashtag #DrinkingOnTheHill.