More than 600 people have signed a petition supporting the Students Advocating Sexual Safety and Empowerment club’s proposal to install a vending machine at Syracuse University which would dispense products meant to promote safe sex.

The vending machines would include products such as tampons, condoms, lubricant and emergency contraceptives. The organization plans to present its idea at a Student Association meeting in December and will apply for SA funding to buy the machine, said freshman Nicole Aramboles, who is the deputy manager for the vending machine project. Once it is funded, she said she believes that the university will allow the machine to be installed on campus.

“It should be a student’s right to have access to (these) products,” she said. “Our main goal is to tell, to let it be known this is something that we want and something that we all benefit from.”

Over the summer, SASSE president Crystal Letona, a senior communications and rhetorical studies major, was in contact with students from other schools, such as Brandeis University, where similar machines are currently in place, Aramboles said.

The Brandeis wellness vending machine stocks free Plan B One-Step, an emergency contraceptive, along with other items for purchase in a gender-neutral bathroom on campus, according to The Brandeis Hoot. The machines are smaller wall units that also display posters of resources for survivors of sexual assault.

The vending machine at Brandeis, and one at University of California-Los Angeles, primarily dispense cheaper options for birth control. At Brandeis, Brandeis Pro-Choice received a $5,000 grant from Planned Parenthood Generation Action in October 2017 to fund the machine. At UCLA, the administration paid for the products.

University of California, Davis has a vending machine that offers different types of condoms, lubricant, pregnancy tests and Advil, among other products.

Aramboles said SASSE presented the vending machine idea to SU administrators, who said they would not fund it. The point of the petition, which is circulating on Change.org, is to show interest from the university community, she added.

Though vending machines come at various costs, Aramboles said the organization would try to buy a used machine at a lower cost, though the specific budget has not yet been planned out.

“The campus community urges the administration to install a Health & Wellness Vending Machine that vends cheaper alternative Plan B One-Step, in addition to offering free health items such as menstrual products, condoms, and other wellness products,” the petition said.

Some of the products that would be offered in the vending machine at SU are currently already available in buildings on campus. Free menstrual hygiene products are available in several buildings on campus, funded by SA. Products such as condoms, oral dams, lubricants and finger cots are available for free from SU Health Services.

Health Services offers a plan called the Safer Sex Express, which will deliver the contraceptive products to dorms on campus. The petition said that a vending machine allows students anonymity by not having billed health services visits.

The SASSE petition is currently trying to get to 1,000 signatures, and had 646 as of Sunday night.

“Adopting Health & Wellness Vending Machines would enable students, faculty, and staff to take control over their own bodies in a more comfortable and accessible way,” the petition said.

Published on November 26, 2018 at 8:39 am

Contact Catherine: ccleffer@syr.edu | @ccleffert