Imagine what would happen if, after just one year, Stanford fell 37 places in U.S. News & World Report’s annual college ranking list. What kind of outcry could the University expect from students and alumni? What sort of changes could we expect to see on campus?

While Stanford may never have to face the reality of plummeting from fourth to 41st in the magazine’s list, the University’s sexual health resources ranking has, in fact, fallen that many places in the span of a single year.

Trojan, one of the nation’s leading condom manufacturers, released its second annual Sexual Health Report Card on Sept. 10. The Report Card surveyed 139 colleges and universities from every state and major NCAA Division I conference and graded the sexual health resources and services made available to the student bodies of each school.

Stanford, which carried the number four spot in last year’s Report Card, fell to number 41 this year, three places below UC-Berkeley and worse than every Ivy League school save Cornell. The University of Minnesota was rated first, tied with the University of Wyoming. Louisiana Tech University ranked last.

While much of the survey remained the same, Trojan did expand the criteria this year as part of its national “Evolve” campaign for increased sexual dialogue. Major rank changes from last year, therefore, were not uncommon — the University of Wyoming jumped 91 spots into the top slot this year.

Here at Stanford, sexual health resources and information are made available to the student body through the Sexual Health Peer Resource Center (SHPRC) at Vaden Health Center. The SHPRC is a Voluntary Student Organization financed through ASSU Special Fees funding. It is almost entirely run by a student staff under the supervision of Vaden’s Health Promotion Services.

Donnovan Yisrael ‘89, manager of sexual health and relationship programs at Vaden, said that he does not see any significant change that has occurred in the SHPRC within the past year that could account for the change in the Trojan ranking. Overall, he credits the SHPRC and its staff with providing the campus with sexual health information and resources ranging from pamphlets and contraceptives to weekly classes on sexual health.

“The SHPRC has been around in some form or another since I was a student, and I was a student in the late ‘80s,” Yisrael said. “It’s really great to have a student-run organization that we don’t have to do much to keep going.”

While Yisrael praised the SHPRC staff members for the sexual health services they offer to the Stanford community, he also suspects it is rare for an independent student organization to handle both the resource distribution and informational classes for a university’s sexual health services.

“They’re essentially a self-run and self-sustaining organization,” he said.

According to Sev Guardado ‘09, the Dorm Outreach Coordinator for the SHPRC, the major obstacle the center faces is making the student body aware that the SHPRC exists and getting students to take advantage of its services.

“I think that the biggest problem isn’t that the resources aren’t there,” Guardado said. “We have a really great set of counselors. I think the biggest problem is that people really don’t know that we’re there.”

One of Guardado’s goals for the SHPRC as the quarter progresses is to start a monthly newsletter, in addition to increasing contact with Resident Assistants (RAs) in freshman dorms and making freshmen aware of the resources available to them.

During New Student Orientation each year, University officials make an effort to inform freshmen of the sexual health resources available on campus, specifically in programs like the “Real World: Stanford” and in discussions with dorm Peer Health Educators (PHEs). Even so, the practical information does not always reach the entire freshman class.

“I think they did a good job of explaining what services are available,” said Alex Carney ‘11. “But not so much where to go or how to go about getting them.”

By SHPRC policy, all Stanford undergrads are guaranteed $2 worth of free sexual health supplies per academic quarter, and additional supplies are available at a significantly reduced cost. These supplies include personal lubricants, dental dams and male and female condoms of all shapes, sizes and flavors.

However, some of Stanford’s peer institutions trump the University when it comes to providing sexual health resources and supplies: the USC’s sexual health resource room provides unlimited free condoms for all students, while Cal Tech has free condoms available in all housing facilities.

While Stanford may have some room to improve in providing sexual health resources to students, at least according to Trojan, Yisrael advised that universities in general pay closer attention to the sexual health of their student bodies, stating that, at Stanford, the importance of sexual health is often underemphasized in favor of more aggressive issues such as alcohol education and relationship abuse prevention.

“Sexual health 20 years ago when AIDS just came out was like the hottest issue around,” Yisrael said. “It’s an ongoing need, but it’s not at the top of the priorities for the University or even for Health Promotion Services.”

The SHPRC is located on the second floor of Vaden Health Center and is open Monday through Friday from 12 p.m. to 6 p.m., though it has been closed for the entire summer and is not scheduled to reopen until Oct. 1.