College hosts panel on sex

By KATELYN WALDSCHMIDT a ssociate news e ditor

saint mary’s hosted an interdisciplinary panel monday night called “let’s Talk about sex.” sponsored by the gender and women’s studies department, the event featured professors from the english, nursing science, biology, history and gender and women’s studies departments.

suyun choi, professor of gender and women’s studies, started the talk by welcoming everyone and introducing herself as the moderator for the night’s session. she explained that the purpose of the panel is to talk about sex in different aspects through different disciplines and “get an intellectual understanding and sensibility of see panel PAGE 4

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The DeBartolo Performing Arts Center is a venue where the community comes together to celebrate film, theater and music. The Michael Browning Family Cinema, located in the Debartolo Center, is showing Oscar-nominated

Bookworms Meeting Madaleva Hall 2 p.m. - 3 p.m. Saint Mary’s Book Club. For book lovers.

“Dawn’s Early Light” DPAC basilica rector fr. brian ching said that Lent, amidst the hustle and bustle of the academic semester, is all about cultivating the proper mindset for easter.

2:30 p.m. - 4:30 p.m. Musical about an Italian-American family during WWII.

Lent, campus ministry supplies numerous one-time and recurring events to help students “engage with” their faith.

“especially at a place like notre dame, preparation for us really means thoughtfulness,” ching said. “It’s so easy for us to get caught up in the 600 things you have to do each day… It’s easy for us to jump from one task to the next. And even put faith in that, right. It’s easy to make going to mass one of those tasks and not be as attentive to how God is working in our life.”

Assistant vice president for campus ministry fr. Pete mccormick said the purpose of Lent and fasting is to enhance one’s imitation of christ.

“I think when it comes to Lent, the question that we’re invited to ponder is at the end of this is, ‘how

Traincon TI n U ed from PAGe 1 and the Us department of health come to the area to help assess remaining dangers in the community, according to cnn vinyl chloride is an environmental contaminant and a known carcinogen. According to the national cancer Institute, vinyl chloride is used to “make polyvinyl chloride (Pvc), a hard plastic resin used to make a variety of plastic products, including pipes, wire and cable coatings and packaging materials.” The institute states Pvc is not a known or suspected carcinogen. doudrick, an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering and earth sciences, said that

Panel

con TI n U ed from PAGe 1 how our sexuality is construed and practiced and even regulated in a specific time and space.”

Jamie Wagman, professor of both gender and women’s studies and history, spoke first to give her presentation titled “sex education, visual culture and social constructions of Gender, sexuality and race.”

Wagman explained how she uses “sex education guides from gender history archives to expose students to the ways that different interest groups have understood and made assumptions about race, gender and sexuality through the latter half of the 20th century.” she said that some of this “propaganda” included things such as bans for sex education textbooks, the idea of birth control as a communist plot and the binary of good and bad sex. Wagman said that different forms of pop culture helped portray the ideal of the white heterosexual family and the consequences of stepping outside this mold.

“Philip Kaufman’s 1978 version might I be a bit more like Jesus?’” mccormick said. “[Then the next] question is, ‘What do you need for that?’ And so some people might be like, ‘I need to give up chocolate,’ because that would help. okay, do that. but it might be something completely different.” on top of the regular mass and confession schedule, the basilica provides two additional liturgical prayer offerings during Lent: adoration on mondays and stations of the cross on fridays.

“[The stations of the cross] ultimately help us remember how much God loves us because he was willing to suffer and die for us…,” ching said. “[Adoration gives] people the opportunity to just step out of themselves for a little bit and place themselves very thoughtfully and intentionally in God’s presence so that they can grow in their relationship with him.” beyond liturgical services, weekly happenings furnished by campus ministry include “do nothing” experiences, Latino and Asian student ministry bible studies, Lenten small groups and emmaus walks. diana salgado huicochea, the when experts refer to a carcinogen, they are referring to long-term exposure to a certain toxin that may cause cancer.

“When [vinyl chloride] enters the water, it’s a pretty volatile compound,” doudrick said. “It will actually volatilize, or evaporate, into the air and then once it reaches the air — the atmosphere — it can photodegrade by sunlight. so the sun can break it down, essentially, within minutes to hours.” even with its short half-life, doudrick said it is important to consider the question of how much substance was burned during the controlled release and how much made its way into the environment. state and federal officials have determined that there are no dangerous levels of chemicals in the air of ‘bodysnatchers’ uses sexuality as an overt scare tool,” Wagman said before continuing to say that there is a theme “that the nation’s loose sexual mores are the impetus for this visit.”

Julia dauer, english professor, spoke next with her presentation about reading stories of sex and sexuality from 19th-century America. she started by posing two questions. The first was ‘how do we read for queer sex and sexuality in pre-1900 American literature and culture?’ and the second was ‘how can we read stories of queer sexuality that become visible in archives of criminality?’ dauer said the challenges with the first question have to deal with “language, with so-called identity and with methodology.” biology professor vanessa Young introduced a scientific angle to the conversation with a presentation entitled “diversity in nature,” focusing on animal sex and reproduction. assistant director of outreach at campus ministry, said that Lent is a convenient time to kickstart programming and expand visibility for Asian, black and Latino student ministry. The Lenten bible studies, offered due to the broad appeal of scripture among all christian denominations, are open to “anyone and everyone,” salgado huicochea added.

“Another big challenge is that reading for something like sex or sexuality requires us to think about and question what we mean by these terms in the first place,” dauer said.

“It’s just a space where people can feel comfortable talking about faith and also their own personal life experience, which sometimes involves a lot of hardship,” salgado huicochea said. “We wanted to offer these spaces where students of color could come in and feel that they don’t have to explain themselves.”

A performance of “The Passion” on south Quad, a mardi Gras celebration in south dining hall, a silent directed retreat and a black ecumenical prayer service are a few of the one-off events on campus ministry’s Lenten schedule.

“[The black ecumenical prayer service] will be a coming together to pray as a community during the Lenten season…,” salgado or the water, The new York Times reported. nevertheless, many residents of the area expressed their concerns about remaining chemicals. While it is possible that the vinyl chloride degraded before measurements were taken, other people believe officials are not measuring using low enough levels, doudrick said. many residents are attributing their health concerns to the chemicals released during the derailment despite the reports indicating the area is safe. It is, however, rather difficult to determine whether the

“everything is above the detection limit, so nothing was detected. but there could be lower levels there, and they’re not using good enough equipment, what I call cheap equipment,” doudrick said.

Young first provided an overview of the variety of ways reproduction happens in nature such as sexual forms like hermaphroditism, where a species has both male and female reproductive systems. she also talked about asexual reproduction such as parthenogenesis, “reproduction in which embryos develop without fertilization.”

Young talked about how for some species, particularly types of fish and reptiles, gender “is determined by the environment in which those embryos develop. so in many fish and reptiles, that’s often going to be the temperature of the eggs during development.”

“however in other animals like birds and mammals, offspring sex is determined genetically by a combination of sex chromosomes.”

Young went on to describe the different chromosome setups and not only what that means for gender but also how it varies for different species.

“I’m here to maybe contradict that idea,” Young said about the notion that there is a specific binary in humans caused by chromosomes.

“human embryos actually have no sexual difference until after six weeks of development when that huicochea said. “We are trying to bring up a pastor from the south bend community, a student will be giving a reflection, we will be doing worship music and doing readings.” regarding the absence of meat from the dining halls during Lent, mccormick said he probably holds a minority opinion relative to the student body.

While all prayer opportunities offered to notre dame students are optional, there is one University Lenten practice unavoidable to undergraduates: the absence of meat in the dining halls on Ash Wednesday and the fridays of Lent.

“There are certain aspects of who we are as a catholic community, where you’re going to be impacted,” mccormick said. “We don’t really hide the ball that notre dame is a catholic institution. I really do believe that an expression of our catholic character is this discipline around giving up meat on fridays during the season of Lent.” ching said that the goal of prayer, fasting and almsgiving reported ailments are caused by the contamination event, doudrick said. There must be a consistency of symptoms among a large group of people, and some people may have pre-existing health concerns.

“When you’re trying to make these connections, you usually need a lot of people that are getting sick with the same effect; a lot of people are getting headaches or a lot of people are getting rashes,” doudrick said. “If it’s just one person getting rashes, and one person is throwing up and then you know what I mean? It’s really hard to make the connection.” doudrick also said he doesn’t believe the train derailment will lead to a catastrophic environmental disaster. environmental disasters are usually caused by a persistent pollutant that does not break down in last pair of chromosomes join to form that typical pair,” Young said. “It’s actually possible for individuals to receive more than one copy or even no copies of those X and Y chromosomes from the parents and this can result in a variety of chromosomal combinations.”

Young concluded that she hopes these examples illustrate “that sex really is a continuum much more so than a categorical definition.”

To wrap up the panel, nursing professor cibele Webb spoke about sexuality and person-centered care.

Webb began by reciting the World health organization’s definition of sexuality, quoting that “sexual health is fundamental to overall health and well-being of individuals and to the social and economic development of communities and countries.”

Webb explained that person-centered care “takes into consideration that some individuals distrust the healthcare system and healthcare providers as a result of previous trauma or historical trauma.”

Person-centered care “involves recognizing the patient as the source of control and full partner in providing compassionate and coordinated care, based on respect during Lent isn’t to make students miserable but to call people — out of the monotony of their lives — to be more attentive about God and self. mccormick added that screwing up Lenten obligations happens.

“no meat on Ash Wednesday and no meat on Good friday and fridays of Lent — there’s something about that particular aspect of the tradition that even if [one is] not a regular mass goer, it’s something that makes you feel like you’re doing something to grow closer to God, which of course you are,” ching said.

“There was one messiah, and it is not us,” mccormick said. “And there are going to be times where we make mistakes… As someone who has at times completely forgotten that it’s friday and wolfed down a burger… only to realize at the end that it had happened, I’m a big advocate of dusting yourself off and saying my bad and trying again.”

Contact Peter Breen at pbreen2@nd.edu

the environment or massive quantities of contaminants in one area that are slowly leaching into the environment, he said.

nevertheless, he said his opinion could change if experts uncover information about the quantity of vinyl chloride released into the environment.

“It’s an unfolding event, and even [for] people that are involved heavily, or people that know a lot about these types of situations, there’s too many unknowns,” doudrick said. “so you can make guesses and those guesses could be wrong. And when I say unfolding, it’s like as new knowledge comes those guesses could morph into something else.”

Contact Gabby Beechert at gbeecher@nd.edu

for the patient’s preferences, values and needs.” students are encouraged to let the gender and women’s studies department know of any future topics they would like to see in the “Let’s Talk About sex” panel series.

The previous model was the disease-based approach to healthcare that, in regard to sexuality, focused on the negative consequences of sex, “such as developing an hIv infection or acquiring sexually transmitted diseases,” Webb said. Patient-centered care helps reduce stigma and empower patients, as well as “increase their interest in sexual health-related resources,” she added.

“sexual health is an important component of overall health that health care providers should address as part of routine health visits,” Webb said, before going on to talk about what healthcare providers can do to make a more welcoming environment, such as being understanding to any experience, avoiding assumptions and not using polarizing language.

Contact Katelyn Waldschmidt at kwaldschmidt01@saintmarys. edu