MEREDITH RODRIGUEZ & NICHOLAS LINDSEY
Staff Writers
She never dreamed of being pregnant, not at Pepperdine. She may be in one of your classes. She may even be one of your friends. But chances are, no one will find out about her pregnancy because she does not know who she can tell.
“I hear from two to three students a year who get pregnant,” Dean of Student Affairs Mark Davis said. “It’s a real problem that many feel no one wants to help them with.”
Members of Students for Life, a student organization that has been slowly growing over the past four years, wants to change that feeling. They started most notably at the beginning of the semester by placing magnets on the doors of Lovernich Apartments providing Web site and phone number resources for women.
“It’s a hard place to be pregnant,” junior Cady Tolon said. “There are stigmas that we are doing something about.”
Tolon, volunteer coordinator for SFL, said the club is not like others she’s joined.
“It makes you do something,” she said.
With a three-fold mission to foster a student dialogue, put action behind words through service and act as an agent to change the campus environment, SFL seeks to change Pepperdine into an institution that can support and deal with students who become pregnant.
Dr. Andrew Yuengert, microeconomics professor and faculty advisor for SFL, noted that pregnant college students make up 10 percent of the university population. According to the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, it could be even more.
“Where are these [10 percent] at Pepperdine?” club member John Denniston asked. “We want to see more of that.”
The tragic answer, according to Davis, seems to be that the pregnancies are hidden by students who are too afraid to come forward. Many feel that their only hope is to either leave school or have an abortion.
“They haven’t known until now that there are options out there,” Yuengert said.
Coordinating with administration, Davis said SFL has already played a role in the new policy to allow children to live in apartment housing. Davis is also working with student leaders on-campus to plan convocations to change the campus atmosphere.
“We don’t punish someone for being pregnant, “ Davis said. “We want to help.”
The club began from a personal experience nine years ago. After freshman Taletha Phillips found out she was pregnant, she knew she had few options. In fact, she said that when she went to Planned Parenthood, “begging them to help,” they told her, “It sounds like you don’t have a choice. You have to have an abortion.” Then they gave her the phone number of an abortion doctor.
“It’s tragic that no one talks about the problem,” she said.
After graduating from Pepperdine, Phillips now works at the Westside Pregnancy Resource Center in Santa Monica, advocating for couples who find themselves in unplanned pregnancies and to support anyone who might be hurting from a previous abortion,” according to the WPRC Web site. She has also come to speak at Pepperdine for SFL club meetings.
For many leaders in SFL, support comes from everywhere.
Tolon, who doubles her coordinating position with being an RA, hosts convocation nights for her freshman dorm to raise awareness.
“It has to start somewhere,” she said.
Yuengert writes down Web sites and contact numbers as resources on his board.
“It’s not a part of my job, but it’s still my duty,” he said.
On a gated campus that many view as a secluded college, SFL wants to open any gates that have been built within the student body so that students are not afraid to ask for help. By providing anonymous phone numbers and talking with students, SFL has already raised awareness of an issue affecting one-tenth of university women.
For the students that believe in SFL, there can only be one direction: forward. By spreading the word that the university is changing and through direct interaction, SFL is able to show these pregnant students (who may be your lab partners) that there are many options that do not discriminate on any basis.
Yuengert said that nothing is impossible if one person can help provide these options.
“Yes, there are options,” he said. “But more importantly, there is hope.”
02-01-2007
