Collegiate Times

Virginia Tech has received a lot of rankings: No. 1 in food, No. 17 this week in college football.

Now Tech can add another ranking to the list: No. 64 in sexual health, according to Trojan Condoms and BestPlaces.net.

This is the second year that a survey was conducted by Trojan Condoms in conjunction with its "Evolve" campaign, which works with students to determine the sexual health education conditions in colleges.

"Trojan decided to say, 'What's going on in college campuses?'" said Melle Hack, media contact for Trojan Condoms. Hack said that during student forums, Trojan Condoms learned that students were unsure of the availability of contraceptives and other resources in their student health centers.

Trojan Condoms, in hopes of improving sexual education on college campuses, solicited help from BestPlaces.net to conduct a survey of college health centers. BestPlaces.net is a research firm that rates cities in various categories such as crime, homes, and education. Bert Sperling, the owner of BestPlaces.net, along with four other researchers, came up with a way to rate 139 colleges in the country, representing all 50 states.

"We thought, 'How can we measure the level of sexual health?' We proposed different ideas and we came up with what we thought was a good plan," Sperling said.

The five researchers came up with 11 categories relating to sexual health, such as availability of contraceptives, HIV testing, sexual health awareness programs and student health center hours of operation.

Each health center was contacted and questioned about the programs and resources made available to the students. Then, the researchers gave subjective grades in each category based on the responses. The grades were then averaged into a "Student Health Center GPA," on a 4-point scale.

Tech received a 2.91 GPA. Schiffert Health Center received A's when it came to HIV and STD testing and B's in availability of programs, sexual assault groups, and the website. However, the availability of contraceptives and condoms received a C, as did the availability of anonymous advice.

Dropping from No. 46 last year, Tech ranked higher than Boston College (120) and Clemson (82) but scored lower than University of Virginia (27) and University of Maryland (56).

In addition to the survey conducted with the health centers, Sperling created a survey through Facebook.com where college students had the option of answering questions about their health centers. Thirty-one Tech students filled out the survey. Seventy-seven percent of the Tech students said that they would contact Schiffert Health Center, should they have a reason. Eighty-three percent said that Schiffert did a good job, 77 percent said that Schiffert has complete services, and 87 percent called Schiffert "trustworthy." The responses did not affect the subjective grades but provided Trojan Condoms and BestPlaces.net with more information.

"This is the most interesting study we've done," Sperling said.

He added that they have seen schools working to improve on the grades they received last year.

"Many took their low ratings, realized they had some deficits and improved their facilities... we saw that many listened."

Schiffert Health Center would not comment.