Colleges Tackle Problem, Teach How to Reduce Risks

While many high schools are struggling with the AIDS education issue, a Times survey found that colleges in Orange County have extensive programs on the topic and little controversy.

At Cal State Fullerton this fall, AIDS education was a mandatory part of new student orientation, with some 1,600 freshmen and transfer students required to watch a film on “Sex, Drugs and AIDS.”

At Orange Coast College, a campus committee has been working since last spring to incorporate AIDS education into the curriculum. Instructors in sociology, human sexuality, biology and physiology now routinely discuss the deadly disease in class, Dean of Students Sharon Donoff said.

Since January, nine of Orange County’s 10 four-year and community colleges have been part of an AIDS education consortium that has planned seminars for their campuses. Even Fullerton College--the one school that declined to participate in the countywide College AIDS Committee--has developed AIDS education efforts of its own.

The consortium, chaired by David Souleles, UC Irvine’s AIDS Education Project director, has planned an AIDS Awareness Week Nov. 2-8 that will feature films, debates and lectures at each of the nine campuses. But AIDS education is an ongoing process, not just a one-week affair, college officials said.

“This is not just a one-day workshop and then people can forget. We hope to have a long-term program,” said Marilyn Dixon, director of student health services at Golden West College, where business as well as biology instructors discuss issues involving AIDS.

“We believe we’re in the education business and from everything we’ve ever learned, this is a serious issue,” Orange Coast’s Donoff said.

Every Orange County campus has been setting up an AIDS education program, usually run through student health services, Souleles said. “They’re teaching risk reduction. Some community colleges are dealing with an older population of students but their basic needs are the same--to understand the disease and not be frightened by it.”

“It’s quite important,” agreed Cal State Fullerton student health educator Delores Delcoma. “Quite a few students, especially freshmen, are sexually active” and need to know how to protect themselves.

The Orange County education consortium began last year when the Pacific Mutual Foundation, the foundation established by the Newport Beach life insurance company, offered each college $1,500 in seed money for AIDS education. Each grant was matched by another $1,500 from the Health Association of America.

Pacific Mutual spokeswoman Suzanne Hoehl said the grant program was established after “it became obvious from the surgeon general and the National Center for Disease Control that college-age students were some of the least aware of the AIDS dilemma.”

Although Fullerton College declined the grant, that school is planning its own fall seminar on AIDS, said Norman Price, associate dean of student affairs. In addition, the college has purchased a videotape on AIDS and its biology department is developing a series of seminars, he said.