Auburn's sex report card is not being taped to the fridge this year.
Trojan Brand Condoms recently released its annual Trojan Sex Health Report Card, which grades 141 universities around the nation based on the availability of sex health information on campus.
Auburn University came in six spots from the bottom at number 136, down from 119 last year.
The report, a team effort of Trojan and Rock the Vote, does not rank schools as sexually healthy or unhealthy in terms of the prevalence of disease, just to what degree help and information is available to students.
The schools' "sex health" was scored on 12 categories, including health center hours of operation, HIV and STD testing locality and cost and existence of peer groups.
"We're not measuring sexual health in the way that we're looking at STDs or anything like that," said Bert Sperling, president of Sperling's BestPlaces, the independent research firm that fielded the study.
Each school was scored on a one-to-10 basis for each category, and according to that number, a letter grade (A through F) was assigned to produce a sex health GPA, which determines the rankings.
Auburn's GPA chalked up to 1.33, a D.
Overall, Alabama is the worst state in the country, with four Alabama universities in the bottom 30.
At the top of the list was Columbia University, with a GPA of 3.70.
Columbia's success was accredited to a newly implemented University program called "Ask Alice," which allows students to anonymously submit sex health questions, which are answered by medical staff.
"I think it's a nonscientific report," Kam said. "I don't put a lot of credibility on the report, to be quite honest."
Auburn does offer options to students who have concerns or questions about sex health, with information and testing available at the AU Medical Clinic.
The Medical Clinic does not give out free condoms, but outlets in the community like Unity Wellness and the Department of Public Health do.
"We have brochures and information that's available both online as well as here for people on sexual health and sexual awareness, but we're not pushing it out," said Fred Kam, director of the Medical Clinic. "Almost everybody today can go from their phone or from the Internet and look up everything they want."
Auburn can improve in every category, but would have to improve exponentially to substantially move up in the rankings.
Sperling said Auburn should do a better job of promoting walk-ins at the clinic, provide a special section on the University website, increase avenues for student advice and establish peer groups to get a better grade on the report.
Eric Smith, the newly appointed director of Health Promotion and Wellness Services, said sexual health is an important national concern, but is only one part of an overall wellness plan.
"Before we implement any health and wellness program, it is vitally important to garner local data on health behavior and individual choices," Smith said. "This is true for sexual health, and we will investigate it further this spring when we conduct the national collegiate health assessment sponsored by the American College Health Association."
Trojan gave Alabama special mention as the worst state in its report, saying, "Alabama scrapes the bottom."
"We're in a very conservative area here, and to discuss sex at all is a major accomplishment, much less how you protect yourself," said Emily Myers, associate clinical professor of sociology and director of social work.
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