College To Unroll Condoms In Yard

Condoms will be unrolled in Greenough, Weld, and Canaday this semester in a pilot project to provide protection in freshmen dorms, according to an e-mail written by Dean of Freshmen Thomas A. Dingman ’67 obtained by The Crimson.

The Center for Wellness and Health Communication (CWHC) will purchase the boxes, and freshmen involved with the Community Health Initiative (CHI) will keep them stocked, he wrote. Yard Operations will decide where to place the boxes and will be responsible for their installment.

CWHC director and CHI supervisor Keli Ballinger said the condoms will be stocked on a weekly basis.

Next to the condom boxes, CWHC will set up racks with wellness information, according to Dingman.

Ballinger wrote that studies have shown that condom distribution does not affect the frequency or onset of sexual activity but that sexually active individuals will use condoms more frequently when they are more accessible.

“The goal is to ensure that those who are sexually active are protecting themselves and making condoms available seems to do just that,” Ballinger wrote. “Working towards this end seems not to encourage sexual activity, but rather encourages safe sex for those who are sexually active.”

Greenough, Weld, and Canaday were chosen to participate in the pilot “since these are buildings that are fairly central in each of the 3 yards and would make for convenient access,” according to Ballinger.

She also wrote that condoms will continue to be offered by the peer counseling groups Room 13, located in Grays, and Contact, located in Thayer.

Administrators said they will evaluate the project after it gets underway.

“This initiative will be reviewed through a systematic evaluation that will involve usage, surveys, and overall feedback,” Ballinger wrote. “If there is a need to expand [condom distribution] we will consider doing this accordingly.”

Dingman said the pilot will also consider whether students consider the condom availablilty to be a “useful service” and whether “vandalism” or “unintended uses” of condoms or condom boxes occurs.

He said he believed the boxes had already been ordered and would be installed by Yard Operations once they were received.

The condom boxes will be installed in the laundry rooms of the three dorms, according to Harvard Yard Operations Manager of Freshman Dorms Anthony Pacillo.

Matthew L. Sundquist ’09, who co-sponsored an Undergraduate Council (UC) bill passed two weeks ago in support of placing condom dispensers in freshmen dorms, said he was pleased the the College would soon provide condoms to freshmen, if even on a trial basis.

“We just feel that there’s a need that they need to fulfill,” Sundquist said. “If they want to do a test period, that’s fine,” he said.

Jeffrey Kwong ’09 sent an e-mail over the UC-General e-mail list shortly after the bill passed in which he wrote that he was “extremely disappointed” there was no discussion during the UC meeting before the UC passed the bill.

“I believe that the Council’s decision indeed offends members of the student body, in particular those who object to condoms on an ethical, humanist, or religious level,” he wrote.

—Staff writer Brittney L. Moraski can be reached at bmoraski@fas.harvard.edu.