A new campaign by community colleges to increase graduation rates encourages faculty members to incorporate material about pregnancy planning into academic courses. / Inside Higher Ed
By Paul Fain, Inside Higher Ed

Community colleges could improve their graduation rates by helping students avoid unplanned pregnancies. That’s the thinking behind a campaign to encourage faculty members to incorporate material about pregnancy planning into academic courses.

The project makes its point with edgy material, which is surprising because it’s led by the American Association of Community Colleges, with financial backing and other support from the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy. Major higher education associations are an unlikely source for an illustration featuring cartoon sperm and an egg, or of frank discussions about students’ sex lives.

Not so for the association’s “Make It Personal: College Completion” campaign. For example, its web portal includes a link to videos on common myths about birth control. In one called “Chronic Problems,” a young woman says in a voiceover: “My boyfriend smokes a lot of weed. Like a lot, which basically makes his sperm dead. So we’re not all that careful anymore.”

The video continues with a medical doctor, Eve Espey, who responds to that claim by saying that heavy marijuana smokers can indeed be fertile. She then jokingly cites population growth during the weed-plentiful sixties to bolster her case.

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