Why sound the alarm with only 3 HIV cases?

QUESTION: I’m a mother to a daughter and son who are both in college. My husband, who was a former AIM student of yours, showed me your column last April 17, 2015. While I agree that even if the case was only about 3 HIV infected students, I do not agree with your sounding the alarm through your column that’s read by the public. Why not just call the students who wrote you or else talk to the school dean of those students?

You also have to consider the school of those students and the school reputation.

By going public, you insinuated that the school involved does not know its responsibilities.

In using your column to write about this case, you’re hurting the school reputation more than protecting it. If you, instead, just talked to the school dean or deans, they will do their part. I know because I myself teach in a school of college students. Do you know of any responsible college level school who had experienced HIV student cases and didn’t do something about the incidence?

I request that you keep my identity confidential for both personal and professional reasons.

Answer: Yes, I know of a “responsible college level school who had experienced HIV student cases” and who actually did something about the incidence and did so immediately.

Like yourself, this school wants to remain anonymous although, in time, I expect it to allow its experience to be a good lesson to other schools. I know of this experience because I teach in this school and it was part of the action research mentoring I was conducting.

Action research is an old category of research methods. It was a term that the father of applied psychology, Kurt Lewin, coined in 1946. It is research to solve a social problem in and around the communities a school is serving.

Two years ago, I was invited to talk about how to mainstream the research culture in schools. Action research was the kind of research I told the heads of 180 state universities and colleges (SUCs) to engage in. Action research outputs usually qualify for publication in Tier 2 or Tier 3 refereed journals, but not in Tier 1, or so-called “high impact” professional journals which is the research that counts for promotion in schools like Ateneo, LaSalle and UP.

What sort of social problems are action research’s preoccupation? Where the SUCs are located, there are in its outside communities immediate and recurring problems about power shortage, agricultural productivity, calamity, informal settlers, drug addiction and trafficking, street families, and many others. These are the favorite topics of action research. They do not put the researching professor in the frontier of his science or discipline but it solves human problems and saves lives.

In one of the schools where I teach, an action research opportunity arose. During a monthly faculty conference, 2 co-working professors placed in the conference agenda an item that asked: “What do we do about the growing drug addiction among out students?”

When asked what they recommended, the elder professor suggested to start with a scientifically valid survey to put the necessary numbers and statistics to the problem.

When the survey was completed, the 2 professors presented to the faculty and deans the following highlights:

More than half of the college students have tried prohibited drugs.

College friends and “party” acquaintances were the typical influencers.

Almost a third of those who have tried went on with the habit on a weekly basis.

About 10 percent were into an every other day practice and around 5 percent are daily users.

After the presentation, what followed was an orderly and sobering discussion of options about what to do and what can be done by whom and starting when.

The decision was to present the survey results and the what-to-do options to the student association. What surprised almost everyone was how quickly the student association officers asked the elderly lead professor of the survey to guide them in planning a campaign in partnership with student groups.

The campaign plan was completed in record time and the campaign executing student groups were briefed and trained for implementation. The student groups adopted a campaign slogan culled from Bruce Led: “Knowing is not enough, we must apply. Willing is not enough, we must do.”

The campaign had two related objectives. One was for prevention of trial usage and the second was for rehab and therapy of the addicted.

So there’s the school example you wanted. I told its story not so much as to contradict your position as to challenge all of us to answer the question: “Is having three HIV infected students too few to sound an alarm and to start taking drastic actions?” So how many cases may be considered enough? If three will not qualify as enough, will 30? 300?

You suggested: “Why not just call the students who wrote you or else talk to the school dean of those students?”

If I talk to the dean, what can he/she do with the three who have already been infected? Or those three students? Can they or their doctors change what has already happened?

It’s time to be realistic and practical. Our serenity prayer is an inspiration: “Lord, grant us the serenity to accept what we cannot change; the courage to change what we can; and the wisdom to know the difference.”

Keep your questions coming. Send them to me at [email protected].