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Mackenzie Lovell
I love that too. Honestly, like I was finding a way I was like, how can we work community in somewhere? Because like, yeah, community is like, literally the glue that holds any social justice work together and community based work like because for instance, y’all were talking about like the heal conference, like all of our organizations, were also at the heal conference, we either presented there, or we were spreading our resources, they’re like, we’re always like, finding ways to work with each other. And I don’t think our work would be as effective if we didn’t have each other and we didn’t have our coalition’s and we didn’t have our community building. And that’s something I’m really passionate about, like, obviously, national base work is like really big, but like, making sure you foster those communities for students, because like, that’s really where the most substantial work is going to grow from.

Heather Shea
Welcome to Student Affairs now the online learning community for Student Affairs educators. I’m your host, Heather Shea. Two years ago on the podcast, I hosted an episode with an OBGYN and a women’s studies professor discuss the ways in which we can support reproductive health equity on college and university campuses post roe. Over the past few years, the campus in which I work as a director of a women and gender equity center has been updated several different support in the wake of the decision. And I have had the honor of working alongside and witnessing several student activists on my campus take up this cause and sustain several different programs. And so we’re using today’s episode as a bit of a case study of how a student activists can promote reproductive health equity, how student affairs educators can support them in that work. And also recognizing that Michigan is a unique state to be doing this, then that we have several privileges and drained in our state constitution. Before I introduce the students who are on the panel today, I’m going to share a little bit more about our podcast and today’s sponsors. Student Affairs NOW is the premier podcast and learning community for 1000s of us who work in alongside or adjacent to the field of higher education and student affairs. We hope you’ll find these conversations make a contribution to the field and our restorative to the profession. We release new episodes every week on Wednesdays and you can find us at studentaffairsnow.com on YouTube or anywhere you listen to podcast. Today’s episode is sponsored by Huron, a global professional services firm that collaborates with clients to put possible into practice. And this episode is also sponsored by Routledge, Taylor and Francis do their complete catalogue of authoritative education titles at routledge.com/education. Stay tuned to the end of the podcast for more information about each of these sponsors.

Heather Shea
As I mentioned, I’m your host, Heather Shea, my pronouns are she, her and hers and I am broadcasting from the ancestral traditional and contemporary lands of the three fires confederacy of Ojibwe, Ottawa, and Potawatomi peoples, also home to the campus of Michigan State University, which resides on land needed in the 1819, Treaty of Saginaw. I have the pleasure of working with an incredible group of students, and I’m so excited to welcome you all to the podcast today. It has long been, I think, a conversation amongst the office that we needed to feature, the work that you all have been engaging in over the past two years. And so I’m so thankful that in the middle of the summer, you all agreed to join me today. Talking about you need to introduce yourself. Tell us a little bit about you and how and why you got involved with advocacy related to sexual and reproductive health. And, Rylee, we’re gonna start with you.

Rylee Warner
Hi, I’m Rylee, she her pronouns. I am a fifth year student at Michigan State for chemistry and going into science education. I am the CO president of Planned Parenthood generation action at MSU. And then I’m also a co founder of our wonderful, wonderful group of East Lansing free emergency contraceptives. I got involved in advocacy, right after high school trying to find my voice trying to see what I could say what I wanted to say. And the decision came out about Texas, the Texas law a couple years ago, and that was I helped put together protests and that’s kind of where it all sparked.

Heather Shea
I love it. Thanks so much Rylee for being here. Julia. Welcome.

Julia Walters
Hi everybody. My name is Julia she her pronouns. I am a rising second year law student at Michigan State University. And I am also a co founder of East Lansing for emergency contraceptives and I currently sit as chair of the city of East Lansing Human Rights Commission. Um, I started getting involved activism when I was in high school, I ended up leading a protests against the confirmation of justice Brett Kavanaugh. And from there, it just kind of spiraled and continuous manifestations of advocacy surrounding the issues of reproductive justice and reproductive health care.

Heather Shea
Thank you so much for being here. Julia, the two current students, everyone else is now an official alum. So really excited. Harsha. Tell us a little bit about you.

Harsna Chahal
Yeah. Hi, everyone. My name is Harsna Chahal. Oh, my pronouns are she her hers. I am currently a master’s student getting my Master’s in Public Health at Michigan State University. And starting in August, I’ll be an incoming medical student at Central Michigan University. So I’m quite excited for that. I’m also a co founder of East Lansing for emergency contraception. And I also work as the sexual health internet woman’s admin services. Um, and I guess what really inspired me to go into advocacy specifically in sexual and reproductive health started with recognizing that currently, instead of Michigan, there was period products taxed, and that angered me a lot and it frustrated me. And so I started helping to advocate and the elimination of that, working towards getting East Lansing free menstrual products in their governmental public own restrooms. From there I’ve been really diving deep into increasing my knowledge on the sexual reproductive health care and the health disparities surrounding that, not just on the limited access and accessibility, but what other modes like modes of transportation impacting this kind of health care and recognizing that not only like physicians need to be helping take care of patients but recognizing that they can have the bigger voice and so that made me want to go into advocacy related to that, and hopefully become an OBGYN.

Heather Shea
Oh, yay, Mackenzie. Hello.

Mackenzie Lovell
Hello. Okay, my name is Mackenzie Lovell, my pronouns are she her. And like how they’re just said I had recently just graduated Michigan State University with a bachelor’s in three majors, social relations and policy comparative cultures and politics and Women’s and Gender Studies. And while I was at MSU, for the past four years, I first I’m the final co founder of East Lansing emergency contraceptives, all four of us are here. But I also do a lot of work with like menstrual equity on campus. I was president of padman. For the past two years, I also was on Planned Parenthood generation action with Rylee. I did that all four years of my time at MCO. But I also did work in sexual assault prevention and awareness on campus. And I think this all like my inspiration for all of this kind of came from like my own story, my own experience with my sexual health, in a very reproductive justice, like fashion, with storytelling being at one of the forefront of it. But just the barriers I experienced when I was younger when I first started menstruating and all the stigma I faced, and then my struggle as an adolescent to like, actually obtain sexual health resources, and how isolating that felt for me, and it was a huge motivator for me to like, make sure that nobody else felt that way. So I think that’s why I did everything that I do.

Heather Shea
Right now. Thanks, Mackenzie. And last but not least, Nupur.

Nupur Huria
Hi, everyone. My name is Nupur Huria, I go by her hers pronouns. I also just graduated from Michigan State University I majored in human biology and psychology there. So also on the pre med track. Over there, I was the lead advocate permission menstruation throughout my three years there, and I was also the co founder, slash co director with Harshna for the heel Sexual Health Conference, which stands for healthcare, education, advocacy leaders. And that’s something that we had just this past year in March, which was so exciting. I got involved in sexual health advocacy, because there was originally a lot of stigma surrounding sexual health and menstruation and my Indian culture. And from that I kind of just stemmed a lot of interest in high school, founded a period equity club. And as a freshman in college, I got to attend the bill signing for the tampon tax repeal, which was so exciting and so inspiring, met a lot of other advocates there. And from then on, was kind of motivated to pursue my own thing stayed on that menstrual equity track joined the Michigan organization on adolescent sexual health. And you’re just interested in the intersection between health and policy.

Heather Shea
Awesome. Well, thank you all for spending time with us and for sharing your stories with our, with our viewers and our listeners, folks who work in Student Affairs, work alongside students to try to change this very slow moving shift that we’re going to talk a little bit about all of these different initiatives that you all sparked, and kind of then their main focus areas next. And I think the key here is that most of these things came up other than ppda. Right. And I think, yeah, I think that other than TPA, everything else kind of came about after the overturn of Roe v. Wade. So, talk as we’re going through each of these initiatives, talk a little bit about how it responds to the needs and current needs of students in the wake of that Supreme Court decision. So Julia, tell us a little bit more about East Lansing free emergency contraception, or as we call it, el free, etc. And what what you were aiming to accomplish with starting that with all of the other folks on the call? We’re gonna talk about other things.

Julia Walters
Absolutely. So yeah, East Lansing for emergency contraceptives was born out of that, like shadow period after the decision. I think a lot of us students who are just looking for different ways where we could take action. And on campus, a lot of us I think we’re in our own individual worlds trying to see, you know, we currently see a deficit here we see that there’s a lack of resources for a lot of students, what can we do right here right now to assuage that. And so we formulated because several of us were working on these independent projects, and we had an advisor who fortunately brought us all together. And then from then on, we looked to see sort of what other universities were doing as far as responses and we’re really inspired by some students at George Washington University, who had put together a free emergency contraceptive distribution network. So we applied for for a grant with Plan B, the company, we were very fortunate to receive that and That was in the at the end of summer 2023. And then we officially launched East Lansing free emergency contraceptives in October of 2023. And so we have kind of two different modalities that we operate in. First, we partner with three on campus locations. And at those locations, students can go in, grab a free emergency contraceptive, and it is completely anonymous. And the other option that we have because we realize that students can’t really be combined to business hours, and oftentimes one might need an emergency contraceptive when it’s, you know, past 5pm, or on the weekend often is that we also have a meet up system. And so with that, students go ahead and fill out our Google form. And from that, that comes to us and we kind of will connect with that student and assess when they’re available, kind of how urgent it is, and then go ahead and schedule a meet up with them. And again, that is 100%. Anonymous. We also, in addition to most contraceptives offer other safe sex products, including internal external condoms, dental dams and non pregnancy tests. And additionally, since then, we have gone ahead and started as we’ve gotten feedback from amazing campus stakeholders like the gender campus Sexuality Center, that’s helped us to just become more inclusive, and so that we can make sure that our services are as intersectional intersectional and comprehensive as possible. But at this point, we have considerably grown, we started with the four of us, and we added six additional volunteers ranging from first years to medical students, and we have given out approximately 2000, emergency contraceptives, which is totals of around 100. Grand. Yes. Money for students.

Heather Shea
Yeah, cuz I think it’s important to say how much it costs if you have to go purchase the drugstore? What do students what, you know, why is this such an important thing to provide for free?

Julia Walters
Absolutely. So at MSU, there’s a couple of options for students, which is another kind of way that we found ourselves into this work is looking again, what are kind of the unmet needs on campus. And so if you’re a student on at MSU, campus, and you are looking for an emergency contraceptive, your couple of options, you can go to retail drugstore, where it’s going to be between 50 and $64, you also have to deal with transportation of getting yourself there. And oftentimes, our first and second year students are not left cars on campus, so they have to deal with that barrier. Or alternatively, you can go to our pharmacy, but the Michigan State’s pharmacy is off campus. And it it’s ours are limited again to those business hours. And there’s not a direct bus route that goes there. And so you have a lot of mobility and accessibility issues with students even determining that, number one, there is a slightly reduced cost price emergency contraceptive at an on campus pharmacy, but even also then determining how can I get myself there? And you know, how can I fit that in with between my very busy class and work schedule? So it’s often not feasible for students?

Heather Shea
Yeah, thanks so much, Julia, for sharing about that. And I think the long term hopeful to stainability is that we have vending machines available, but still at a really low cost, though, that that is a to be implemented initiative. But we’re really excited about that, too. Nupur tell us a little bit about mission administration, what you were able to accomplish. And, you know, not only within campus, but more broadly as well.

Nupur Huria
Yeah, for sure. So mission menstruation is a well, the chapter at MSU is kind of was initiated by three students that graduated back in 2020. And they made it a national organization. And then I initiated the chapter back in 2021, which feels forever ago. And it’s focused on fighting period poverty and stigma specifically on college campuses. There was already a few like desk locations on campus providing free menstrual products for students. Kind of like picking up from where the graduating students left off, I was able to work with the team kind of bring people together in this new organization and expand from 10 dislocations to around I think 30 to 40 that we had. And then after that we kind of work together to advocate and work with school administration to develop a budget and sponsorships and all that good stuff to implement over 200 for your menstrual menstrual product dispensers across campus and female identifying and gender neutral restrooms. So that was a huge one for us. And that happened in February 2023. Since then, we were able to kind of since we were able to kind of tackle the accessibility portion of Montreal equity. We have moved towards to education and our members will now be working with the Residence Hall Association to make sure that Incoming students and dorms get access to menstrual health, education, hygiene information where they can find products and resources on campus. And it was really fun, then kind of bittersweet to pass the torch on. But I’m really excited to see what everybody there will accomplish now, but that’s kind of what we were working on. When we left off. We’ve been able to be involved in a lot of kind of legislation processes with a lot of the very amazing individuals here, as well. I’m outside of campus, which has been really cool to expand our leash, expand our reach through that. And yeah, so most of our work is in campus. And we’ve been able to tag along on some of the advocacy efforts outside, but I’m excited to see what more will be accomplished in the coming years.

Heather Shea
Thank you so much. On a similar vein, Mackenzie, tell us a little bit about. And,

Mackenzie Lovell
honestly, a really good transition. When I’ve had to have like meetings before where we distinguish what the difference is between padman admission ministration I think her and I got it down. And she did a really good transition for it, which is like, so much administration does a lot of work on campus, which is really important, and a lot of community work as well. But I think I would define pediment more as a, like, we kind of do similar things, but more in like the Greater East Lansing area, but also just like the Greater Michigan area. And I’d say we’re more service oriented. So a lot of what we do is getting free menstrual products to local shelters, or even just like statewide resources, how we can ever however we can like donate them. But also just doing educational things. We do educational things, not only with the Michigan State University, like campus community, but we do it with high schools in the area or high schools all across the state, different universities, kind of aiding them in the process of what mental equity can look like at their campuses. It’s a bunch of different things. But I’d say mostly we focus on service. And we I’m trying to remember the origin stories of them. And I believe it started. It started way before I came to MSU. And we actually used to be a period chapter, which period is like a larger national organization for menstrual equity. But we then became more, I think, Michigan focus and try to become more community driven. And that’s why we created like a whole new organization. Like there’s no other existing peb women anywhere that

Heather Shea
because you should clarify like in Michigan, we use the mitten, right.

Mackenzie Lovell
Yeah. And I honestly for awhile didn’t even understand like, why we’re called padman. But I literally had it described as like, pads, you know, period pads, and then the mitten because for Michigan, so yeah, it’s a good thing to point out. But yeah, we just like, do the best we can to be community driven. But we also do a lot of educational things on campus with like, getting people access to resources where they can have like, sustainable period, like products. So a lot of people don’t just want to use tampons or pads, which is nothing wrong with that, because those are the most accessible products available. But some people want to do more sustainable things like menstrual cups, or period underwear. And we’re actually a beneficiary of a period underwear organization or company, which is insanely enough run by a high schooler. Yeah. And she’s absolutely amazing. It’s called Eco fluff. And I will literally give you their Instagram, so you could promote it as well. But so we give people more options for like, what period products they can use. So anyway, it’s like kind of like, what an import does. I don’t know, we complement each other really? Well. I think we’re always just kind of at each other’s fears all the time. But I think

Heather Shea
it’s great. I mean, I think that’s the key, right? Like lots of overlap and, you know, mutual support, and then like, Let’s go change the world kind of thing. Okay, so back to numbered, harsh, not harsh. No. Do you want to kick off? What what heel is? How it came to be? You know that what happened on that magical day?

Harsna Chahal
Yeah, I could totally. So I would call this new pores and I little baby of 2023 to 2024. So heal is healthcare, education, advocacy leadership. And so we created the heel sexual health conference. And so but what is it so the heel sexual health conference aims to bring awareness to sexual health, I think newborn I recognize that. There’s so many individuals at Michigan State University and across Michigan who are doing amazing work in sexual health appealed and sexual in research and advocacy and leadership and an education. And we recognize that there wasn’t really a developed space or a genuine space where everyone could come together one day to be able to share that information to be able to recognize to be able to make connections. And so because we saw this lack of, of a safe space for people to have these fruitful discussions to be able to talk about what’s next and be able to create a welcoming area for people to learn more about sexual health, especially if you’re gay. didn’t know much about it before. So we created the heal sexual health conference. And it was an amazing event, we were able to have different atmospheres at this event. So we had students and professors present research posters on specific things that they were researching on for many years at the conference. Additionally, we had like two amazing keynote speakers. We had over 150 attendees. We had, I think, 16 research posters actually presented that day. And we have 18 amazing experts in the field of sexual health in three categories, healthcare, education and advocacy. We’re able to just educate people on different workshops.

Heather Shea
Nupur, what else would you add?

Nupur Huria
to that? Yeah, I was just saying I couldn’t have said it better. I think like it, it came from really an need for a unified platform for all these things has something that we’ve really realized throughout our sexual health advocacy work has just been like, this topic is so complex, like, it can’t just be medicine, it can’t just be education. It can’t just be policy work. Like it really has to be all through them. And it really just stemmed from a need to like, bring all that together. And I like Harsna said Michigan State was an amazing place to do that. Just because I think we’ve recognized that a lot of administration and nearby organizations have been supportive of a lot of the work it’s been a great environment for all of our initiatives to really grow and thrive. So in that vein, yeah, like everything she said, I echo

Harsna Chahal
I think, I think heal sexual health conference really brought together that even in sexual and reproductive health, there’s a huge intersectionality within different fields, like menstrual health to reproductive health, the like, so it just really showcases that sexual health and reproductive health can’t be individual fields with them, and that it should be a together movement that we should all be working together, even though you might be an expert on this, and I might be an expert at this.

Heather Shea
It was such a cool day. I mean, I have never seen something come together so flawlessly, and planned a lot of campus events, and that that’s really difficult to do. But I think the cool piece was exactly as you all named that it brought students, researchers, faculty, community members, policymakers, and then there’s just like, great opportunity for dialogue about what what we might be able to do together. So I loved I loved that component of it. Ryleeand Mackenzie, tell us about PPGA and Rylee is that her PPGA Barton shirt on which I’m like, yes, so cool.

Rylee Warner
Well, so again, we’re sure. So PPGA is known as Planned Parenthood generation action. It’s a national group, that straight from the National Planned Parenthood Federation. It’s a group of college students and high school students who are working towards advocacy, and education about sexual health and reproductive justice on campuses. So PPGA, here at Michigan State is lucky to have partners, a bunch of different colleges in Michigan. So we’re not the only one which has made it a big impact. I always find the advocacy can kind of be a little isolating. And so it’s always great to have partners like that. On our campus, specifically, we like to we like to do a lot of education like to do advocacy. And we throw a little social in there as well to kind of create a community where people feel safe to have conversations that are difficult outside of people who all agree with you. But yeah, we do a lot of fun things. But we’ve worked with every group that’s been here, we’ve worked with them. We worked with them and student services. And I have loved my time at PPGA. And I get to work closely with Planned Parenthood advocates of Michigan as well, to run events and do volunteering. So PPGA is something that’s really close to my heart, of course, but we’ve been able to do a lot of good work on campus, it makes me so happy to be here with all of you, but to spend time with the members of our group as well.

Heather Shea
Yeah, Mackenzie, what else would you add? And then maybe you could launch the next question, which is like, what are some of the challenges that you’ve encountered in advocacy work?

Mackenzie Lovell
Um, I think yeah, uniquely, something I was gonna bring up about Planned Parenthood. And that really brought up is like, how deeply committed to advocacy we are. I mean, I did it all four years of college like immediately I knew I came in freshman year and I wanted to do it and so like, specifically your question when you brought up like, what a post like landscape looks like I remember like, even before the decision came out, like I think it was like, February or March of 2022. Like we were already training to, like, start getting the ballot initiative out. Like we are one of the first groups of people to do that. And it was because we anticipated something like that. And it was honestly a really fulfilling experience, because like, we were so close, like closely tied to Planned Parenthood that we saw that advocacy, like, really closely. And we were the first ones to do it on our campus, like literally it was us, like, going out in the freezing cold, and it was blizzarding trying to get people’s signatures like that’s just like such a huge part of Planned Parenthood. And Rylee brings up a really good point that I just talked about what the ballot initiative is. A couple of different states have done this as well. But basically back in 2022, it was pretty much directly after the dogs decision. It was that following November, we had an election but we basically we had a ballot initiative that started in I think, March or April 2022. That was, first we had to get signatures to even get it on the ballot. But basically what it was going to be is that we wanted to enshrine the right to an abortion. So basically what roe gives us the right for or what it did, unfortunately, God, right in Michigan’s constitution, yeah, rip row. Yeah, and just tried abortion access and reproductive like health resources in Michigan’s constitution, and basically just like, gave it further protection in the state. But first, we had to get enough signatures to even get it on the ballot, which we like highly surpassed. I think the deadline was in like early July. And we like, it was just like, insane how much we surpassed it. And then coming November, it was like, literally us there were like lines of students lined up at our polling place here in Michigan State that like we were helping register, that we were informing them about what the ballot initiative is. And like, like, such a key part of our work is like D stigmatizing this process of talking about legislation, because it’s like terrifying thing for people to talk about. Because a lot of people don’t know what’s going on at all. And that’s kind of the barrier we try to cost. Because these are like our colleagues, these are like fellow students, and we’re trying to like, make it less intimidating for them. Because like, at the end of the day, it’s like, their rights, their freedoms, it’s their health, that’s in jeopardy. And that’s the thing I’ve always loved about PBJ is like, how safe in this space, we’ve always made it for people to talk openly about their fears, but also to educate them and have it come from their peers so that we know how they need to process it in a sense, if that makes sense. But yeah. And then we pass that in November, thankfully, and now the right to abortion is enshrined in our Constitution, which is really amazing. And that was like a really, really hard fight. I think that actually kind of leads into like, what in challenges you encounter in your in advocacy work. I think specifically, with like reproductive health, it’s like, the biggest thing that comes to my mind is like burnout. Because specifically for all of us, work closely tied to all of this work, because it affects our health directly. Like everything we’re doing is like, not only in our interest, but other people’s interest. So sometimes it can get really daunting to think that like, we have to be the ones that are putting hours of this work, we don’t get paid for work we’re volunteering to do that’s just exhausting us both physically and emotionally to do because if we don’t do it, then like are we going to have access to any healthcare at all if we don’t provide it for ourselves? So that’s really frustrating. And also just like, sometimes the violence that comes around this kind of work, especially when you’re tied to a name like Planned Parenthood. For instance, like my sophomore year, when we first started, like, advocating and like, kind of getting the word out about the reproductive freedom for all ballot initiative, I got like, a bunch of nasty posters putting on my dorm, like, like door and it was only my door because people could like see that I was advocating for it. So they put a bunch of like, anti prop three, which was what the ballot initiative was on my door. So there’s always that and it’s terrifying. So it’s just it’s a lot of things compounded like reproductive health is just a really touchy subject for people and it’s it makes it worse when it feels like you’re also trying to fight for yourself like you’re you can’t be disconnected from it like you’re always so heavily connected to the outcome so yeah, I just ranted about there

Heather Shea
it was really well thought that was really well said. Other challenges there are obstacles but you all and open it up for anybody who wants to jump in here Nupur Harsna, Julia

Nupur Huria
Yeah, for sure. So I think a lot I personal Mackenzie I that was worded so well like especially Yeah, absolutely. apart like I yeah, I’ve just never heard that expressed so well. And I do like wholeheartedly like resonate with that. Another part is I Just think like getting other people involved I’ve especially students, I feel like there’s such a stereotypical idea of what advocacy means. And I think if I held a really like, strict view of what it meant to like, it means getting involved in policy controversial issues. But it doesn’t always have to be from a lens of Oh, like I have to go testify in court for something I have to, like interact with people, it can be something as simple as like coming up with an infographic and sharing it online.

Nupur Huria
But yeah, just to, I guess, wrap, wrap that up. I think just encouraging other people and letting them know that this is always going to be a joint effort. If there’s something that you’re passionate about, and you know that it’s going to bring a positive impact on other people, there’s always ways to bring larger, impractical seeming goals into smaller steps and a lot more tangible. And yeah, it’s just, it’s just, I think, a big challenge. Long story short, is that it’s, it’s really sometimes difficult to get other people involved and break down that barrier.

Harsna Chahal
I so agree with that. And I like, I really agree with that, actually. And I think it’s a privilege that you can ignore these problems, like, I will talk to my peers who are going into medicine, and they’re like, why should I care about advocating for this or this and I’m like, Well, you don’t recognize that like, if we don’t have access to abortion, that’s going to affect a patient’s health, that we’re we don’t have access to contraception like that, basically takes the right from a lot of people to have that liberation and to have that have control of their reproductive health. And it’s, it angers me so much that people have like, or choose not to get involved in these kinds of situations, because they have the privilege to not need to worry about it. Like that’s not an issue for them, but it affects everyone. You can name one person in your life who menstrates, who has reproductive rights that are currently being attacked every single day. And for you to simply ignore it, you’re hurting that loved one, like you can put the work and effort into doing. So. I think another challenge that I think we can all attest and agree. It’s just sometimes like as a student, we’re constantly advocating, we’re here to learn, we’re here to do other things, I have to still work a job and pay rent and make food on my table. But it’s like having more support from universities to give us more funding to be able to create as more opportunities to be able to connect more to individuals. So I think it’s also the challenges we face is sometimes higher education can move really slowly, when we should be moving faster, especially when this issue is affecting so many individuals, like we saw in Florida that I think right, Florida, they took out DEI like that is so scary, like, are we prepared in case something happens? Like, what are our next steps? Like? How can we support students in Florida, and helping making sure they’re getting the DEI education. So it’s like, it’s scary in the sense that sometimes I feel like higher education can move very slowly. And there’s great support, like whether you’re a great instance, in higher education that’s constantly supporting us all. But sometimes it’s hard when students don’t get a voice at the table to be able to bring their own perspectives like, yeah, $15 as a cheap price for emergency contraception, but it is across campus, I can’t get there from nine to five, maybe we should make it more accessible and bring it here. And so just having that representation and higher education is so needed. And I think that’s often overseen because we are young, or we’re just students, like, what perspective can you bring into this? Like, I’m sorry, I didn’t get a PhD in this topic. I’m just getting my Master’s or undergraduate degree.

Rylee Warner
I think that’s something I’ve kind of realized and looked at as a huge opposition to this entire advocacy realm is like my whole childhood. I was told you’re going to change the world use your voice and my try. And it’s like, oh, well, you’re only 20 You’re only 21 You haven’t experienced life yet. You haven’t. You haven’t seen what that means. You don’t know. And especially in a college, they’re like you don’t know. The troubles that it will go through to put this into place. And it’s like, well, we’re the students that you’re supposed to be supporting. Where are the people that you’re supposed to be listening to? And universities trying to push? Oh, we love our student leaders. We love this. We love that. But in reality, like we’re the ones are supposed to be helping, and they’re not doing so and so like, that’s the biggest thing I’ve seen is like, Oh, well, you’re 20. You don’t you don’t know anything, you’re 21 You don’t know anything. It’s like I’m the one living it. Right here right now. And in Michigan. Sex education is something that is not required in schools. And that’s like, my favorite topic to talk about sex education. It’s not, it’s not required in any public schools. And if schools opt into it, it’s very specific about how you have to go about it. We have sex education, advisory boards, and public schools. And a clergy member has to be a part of that. And so it’s just a lot of red tape that people have to go to. So when you get to a public university, you get to college. And you didn’t have that sexual health, talk in school, like now’s the time to learn that. And I mean, we My favorite quote that I’ve ever said, college students are having sex, high school students are having sex, it’s happening. So we might as well talk about it. And we might well might as well talk about how to do that safely, to create a normal environment, because people are doing it and we have to talk about it.

Heather Shea
Yes, and that is a that is I think that the issue across the US, right. So it’s lots of advocacy at the state level that that gets into that into that policy realm. And MOASH, right. No, prior, you’ve been doing a bunch of work with that, too.

Nupur Huria
Yeah, so MOASH, which I mentioned earlier, as Michigan organization, adolescent sexual health, a lot of stuff surrounding sex education there, I also serve as a member of my homeschool district in Michigan, Plymouth Canton community schools on sexual sexual education advisory board. And although we have been able to make some strides on an individual district level, it is difficult there are specific standards that say we can’t say the word abortion and we can’t provide it. Even like being sad as a form of health care. And as a form of an option that somebody may have. There is no mention of like, irregular menstrual symptoms, that for conditions whose symptoms manifest when you’re in high school, so you have no idea what’s going on with your body, you get to college have or as Rylee mentioned, or having sex and have no idea what’s going on. When you go seek doctors, that’s, that’s where delayed diagnoses come from. And so many gynecologic conditions. It’s, it’s all a cycle. And again, it’ll connect. So it’s really, it’s really frustrating when like, one part of that cycle isn’t right, which affects everything else. So yeah,

Heather Shea
yeah. So we’re gonna transition to talking about kind of where we go from here. And I think we could take this in a bunch of different directions, we could talk about kind of how you see this work continuing beyond your time, but also where you personally are headed. And I mean, as people who are listening or watching can kind of tell this is a group of exceptional students who have been really activist on our campus. And so when I also think about my own role supporting student activism, you know, how can folks who are in roles like mine, or in other areas of Student Affairs, like it could be in Residence Life, or they could be over in the Career Center? Like, how do we support the levels of engagement that you all have had? Because it is, it is labor, right? And it is, it is world changing for our campuses? So I don’t necessarily have a person I’m directing this to So who would like to take that ball that I just taught you?

Mackenzie Lovell
Yeah, I can pick up the ball real quick. And everyone can add on? I think I mean, the first thing I want to echo something that Harsha said previously is that, like, give students a seat at the table when it comes to decisions that affect them. That’s one of the biggest barriers we like that face when trying to get like a wellness vending machine at our university is just sometimes not being included on communication with work that we’ve been tirelessly doing for over a year now. And kind of just getting talked over or not taken seriously because we our students, and Rylee mentioned it to like people seem to take our age or our status as a student is something that like as an excuse to not take it seriously, which is really frustrating. Because, gosh, we are like, we’ve done so much work on this, that we’re probably experts at this point. And it’s just it’s really frustrating because we are also the population that they’re trying to serve and they’re trying to like, maintain the wellness evidence, like if you’re not listening to us and how your actions are affecting our wellness then like how are we supposed to actually do anything to help students, if that makes sense?

Harsna Chahal
Yeah, yeah, and I kind of also want to jump off of what Mackenzie saying is, is also like not only creating a voice or providing a seat at the table, but also helping to connect students like, I would not have known Julia and Mackenzie at all, if it wasn’t because of one advisor was like, Hey, you all are doing really similar work and actually really passionate on the same thing, I’m gonna put us on email chain, and we should meet. And let’s I became to be really good friends and being able to work on so many initiatives. And I think also to like, supporting students who are interested in certain things like Napoleon, I’ve done research on period poverty at Michigan State University, like we found, like 75% of students and faculties face were facing period poverty out of the survey data that we collected. And we were able to connect to faculties. Because we had, like, I had a mentor that was like, Hey, you should reach out to this person. And like, they’ll be really good to help you guys, like look through the data, like, be able to, like make posters, like we were able to present our poster and bring awareness onto this issue to so many students and so many faculty members at Michigan State University. And we’re still doing research with the same professor today to look at post survey data like, how has the work that Michelle administration done? Putting dispensers in restrooms free menstrual products, like is that genuinely helping students? And like, what can we do better? Like? How else can we support individuals menstruation at Michigan State University?

Heather Shea
Yeah, the undergraduate research opportunities are so cool that you all have engaged in right I mean, in terms of presenting. And, and also then, you know, putting forth that information, because that’s how we fare this good work, do really sorry, I totally cut you off, go go share what you’re going to talk about.

Julia Walters
Um, I think one of the biggest things that I’ve seen so far, just like in my advocacy work is, and this is, I think, not nonspecific to the university environment. But it occurs a lot is that there is a tendency to want to give something a commission, or give something a board or give something a task force, and come up with a list of recommendations. And you know, have everybody put a lot of labor and time into it, and then have it go nowhere. And I think that one of the key things moving forward, especially as you know, we’re tangling with the impending November election. And you know, things may be complicated for us, again, we don’t really know at this point, is making sure that those you know, task forces or things that come together, number one at the university level that they send our student voices, students stories, and lived experience is critical to this work, but also that those results and actionable steps, you know, things like doing the free menstrual products, that is an actionable thing that Hashem did or were critical and making happen on this campus, due to kind of inaction from some other members of the university. And it was the students that drove that forward our initiative with working on free emergency contraceptives that’s entirely student led and independent of the university. And so I think that really, we just need to continue to take those ideas and in discussions and, you know, beautiful stapled lists of recommendations and turn them into actual generative work to be able to make the concrete changes for students. And so students can actually see concrete changes in their lives to make things a little bit easier to be on campus.

Harsna Chahal
Oh, so agree with that. And I think really quickly, adding on to what Julia was just saying says so perfectly, is that I think, also, too, is recognizing that this is not like I think a lot of universities are scared to talk about reproductive and sexual health, because it’s often political size. And they’re scared of seeing the consequences of that. But it’s not these are genuine human beings who are facing these challenges, and who need a support like an institution to be there for them like they’re away from their family, they’re away from maybe their loved ones, like you’re here to support them, like how can you do that? And recognizing that you should be taking these actionable steps, and that you should not be afraid to speak your mind about it, because it’s not a political thing. This is genuine concern. And it’s a concern that we are still dealing with, and we’re still really scared coming up for the couple of months. But oh, like, oh, and then

Heather Shea
and then the week of of the dump decision. I think part of why we took this up at MSU and many other campuses did as well is because we realized that the Student Success issue, right, if a student has an unplanned pregnancy, and can have access to the services that they need, the abortion care that they need, or other resources like that could really disrupt their college experience and our quality campuses are not equipped to necessarily serve students who have children. Right. So like the parallel is also not, not true. And so it’s really a comprehensive reproductive justice initiative that I think is really critical that we’re talking about. Because, you know, everyone should be able to choose whether they have children, whether they don’t, and to parent those children in safe environments is the as the work of reproductive justice, which was founded by a group of black women named. And I think that that is a really critical point, because it’s also an intersectional conversation, right? Like, we can’t just talk about this work from the lens of, you know, from my lens, right, as a cisgender. White woman. It’s definitely much more complicated than that. All right. Who else?

Julia Walters
I mean, I think that another thing again, as we just say, keep moving forward and things is that I think that like, transparency between like, university like, you know, officials, and faculty and staff, etc. And like, I don’t know, level setting with students, I think there’s a lot of things where you’re having conversations with faculty and staff, and you realize that they’re having anxieties about, you know, like things too. And when every single day we’re like, on the edge of our seat to see if the Supreme Court is why take away another right. It’s kind of hard, but I think it some of that gets a little bit better. If you know, we are just having those conversations with each other, and again, working together to make like, real change. Because I think it is absolutely incredible when you have like students and faculty members and staff, like all gathered together, because I think that that is how the most incredible initiatives are ended up occurring. That actually makes again, real debate of change in people’s

Mackenzie Lovell
lives. Yeah, absolutely. And I think even Heather, something you brought up, like when you were just saying I think it kind of ties into everything is like recognizing your own identities and how everything you do like everything we’ve advised people to do who work in Student Affairs, make sure it is intersectional. Like, make sure you’re examining where those barriers are. Because like you said, like I’m a cisgender woman as well, like, I’m going to see an issue differently based on my own perspective. But it doesn’t mean that it means like something isn’t completely accessible or something, I think that’s something that’s really important, and it kind of goes through everything is just kind of using empathy, kind of examining where those are, and like using different lenses to examine it as well. And especially when it comes to something like autonomy and agency over someone’s reproductive health, a lot of things can take that out of like, out of their decision. I think one thing I haven’t been able to talk to talk a lot about is like sexual violence, and how that can really change someone’s situation, especially in our university’s campus, which I’m not gonna go too in depth about, but obviously awesome. A lot of many institutions pretty much any institution has a history with sexual violence, and it’s something we always have to talk about and be aware of when it comes to reproductive health and agency and seeing where those barriers are, do they have access to health care if that were to happen to them? Because those kind of decisions get taken out of your hands so if it’s just kind of like one that happens to you and then you get faced with the challenge of like having to deal with like what’s going to happen next like that just like it’s so compounding. But also something is just like making sure our language is inclusive. Making sure everything we do is really inclusive. Like specifically when it comes to menstruation as well as like talking about administrators not talking about women or people who get abortions not just women like a lot of like the discussion around abortion has been really like cisgender women centered and that’s where we come into issue because cisgender women face like abortion access way differently than transgender women or non binary people or gender fluid people like it’s completely different. And that’s also race and ethnicity are completely different as well. So it’s examining for those are there as well. You can’t just look at it at face value, I guess is what I’m trying to say you have to really be able to like look for those barriers and know where they’re going to be and to really make sure that you’re serving your student population. So

Heather Shea
Really well said Mackenzie

Nupur Huria
Yeah, adding on like a little bit more on like the technical side of things for people who are looking to go into advocacy students who do want to make some sort of a change. Like I think I kind of mentioned this before, but no goal is impossible or intangible there. You always have to break it down into little steps, little wins. I’m sure a lot of us can agree that advocacy work is very exhausting. It’s very long. Nothing happens in the span of a couple of days or a week, all takes time. So be sure to set goals for yourself and rely on the people around you. I think in today’s day and age, it’s so easy for society to impose competition and to impose like you doing things by yourself, you need to show that you’re better than people. But know that that’s not really the case. I think. I do feel comfortable speaking for all of us when saying a lot of these initiatives that we have led would not have been possible without others relying on people from different disciplines relying on people of different ages, from diverse backgrounds, bringing in those perspectives like you guys talked about, as well. So y’all rely on each other and create little goals.

Mackenzie Lovell
I love that too. Honestly, like I was finding a way I was like, how can we work community in somewhere? Because like, yeah, community is like, literally the glue that holds any social justice work together and community based work like because for instance, y’all were talking about like the heal conference, like all of our organizations, were also at the heal conference, we either presented there, or we were spreading our resources, they’re like, we’re always like, finding ways to work with each other. And I don’t think our work would be as effective if we didn’t have each other and we didn’t have our coalition’s and we didn’t have our community building. And that’s something I’m really passionate about, like, obviously, national base work is like really big, but like, making sure you foster those communities for students, because like, that’s really where the most substantial work is going to grow from.

Julia Walters
I think that one of the things too, about being a student, like in any university, town, and Mackenzie touched on this a little bit earlier with talking about service. But it’s kind of remembering that like, not only are you on campus, but you’re also in a surrounding town. And so reaching out, you know, to the community, to the city, and beyond, you know, for resources, but also kind of give back, one of the things that we’ve started to do with decency for emergency contraceptives is reach out to other community partners and see how we can like extend that resources. So one of the things that we’ve done more recently, is collaborations with groups that are advocating for unhoused people, but also for domestic violence shelters and other things. And so that was one of the things that is really critical is service, I would say.

Harsna Chahal
Yeah, and I think if you’re listening to this podcast, shout out for you for taking the initiative to listen to this. Because we need more people like this and higher education or truly help students and initiatives. But I think if you’re like a staff, faculty or student, like recognizing that there’s probably an organization doing work like this on campus or in a surrounding community, reach out, no one is afraid to take in more hands. Like if you’re genuinely passionate, like you please join an organization like you could do so much work. Even if it’s like a small part like making infographic I think no person that like doing small little things like helps a bigger movement. And we need more people like that. So don’t be afraid to reach out join that organization, when you will make your friends like I did not know any of these people prior to this, like we weren’t friends until we started all working on these initiatives and how we all became really good friends like, so don’t be afraid to go follow your heart and to follow your passion because it’s great work. And it’s so needed.

Heather Shea
Wow, that was a great segue to our final thoughts, because I’m feeling super inspired. And I think as we always end our podcast with this podcast is called Tim Ferriss. Now, we’d love to hear your final thoughts. What are you thinking about now? What are you publishing? What are you concerned about? You know, so we’ll kind of go around the, around this space. And Mackenzie, I’m going to start with you. And then at least on my side, you’re in that corner? Um, oh, gosh,

Mackenzie Lovell
I feel like I have so many dreams for the future of what I want specifically, and like college campuses, like it’s, it’s a lot but I think, oh, gosh, just like doing your best to create a campus space that is one you can access reproductive health care for either low cost or no cost, making sure that cares intersectional and is trauma informed. And just like always, like leading with like students wellness in mind, but also just like, the faculty staff, like everybody who’s like in that campus community, like just do what you can to like be attentive and like take care of each other. I think that’s what I envision for the future hopefully ended on a high note, hopefully.

Heather Shea
Thank you pretending Nupur.

Nupur Huria
So yeah, I would say I would hope that in advocacy work or in general whenever, in these intense and important conversations, people are keeping themselves first they’re managing their own health, and making sure that that ultimately is their priority, I kind of how Mackenzie said earlier leading with empathy, like hoping to seeking to understand before being understood, and keeping in mind that there are diverse perspectives. And I hope that everybody approaches these topics with an open mind.

Heather Shea
Really well said Nupur, Julia,

Julia Walters
I would say, um, I think working together as a team, it was touched on earlier that sometimes advocacy work can be really isolating. So I think like finding your people working together with them, is so so critical, because you’re not only leaning on other individuals that I really do think that like, more generative ideas and action comes out of like work with with others. Particularly, I think that is true when, if so many different disciplines. In our student work, we’ve been extraordinarily fortunate to have folks from all different perspectives. And that has been so enriching as another actually dimension of my education to hear like about people who have been in classes, where they’re learning about, you know, this is what they’re doing in different cultures as far as like abortion access there, or here’s, I’m going to tie in things from the public health perspective, or, you know, sometimes I share things from, here’s the legal perspective on that. And I think that the work becomes so much better, because you have so many different interdisciplinary focuses. And then also, like Mackenzie, mentioned earlier, making sure that work is always intersectional. And leading with empathy.

Heather Shea
Really well said too, I have always thought along the lines of when there are wicked problem, the thought we need an interdisciplinary solution. So climate change, reproductive health, all of those things are are not just single issue. Ideas. Harsna, final word from you,

Harsna Chahal
ruins everything so perfectly. The only thing I would want to like add on is just people to be constantly educating themselves. Like, I knew a lot of things more in the health aspect, but like talking to Julia, who is a second year law student, like I have now started reading more about like Supreme Court cases, like I’m educating myself in another field that I didn’t know much of. And so recognizing that a, like, everyone’s saying, like, a problem can’t be solved with one mind thinking like that. So that means we kind of all need to keep educating ourselves, like the world is changing, problems are changing. And if you don’t see something like let’s say you don’t see data on something that on a sexual reproductive problem, go make that data, go find the problem, help increase education, and individuals are recognizing that like, every day, we need to be learning something new to be able to truly understand what is at stake.

Heather Shea
I’ve spent the last couple of days at a conference, and we had a speaker this morning, Melissa Isaac, who talked about that we all need to be solutions, looking for problems to solve. And that really hit me because I think we can do a lot of hand wringing, like, Oh, my God, things are, the sky is falling. But what are the solutions that we have within our selves? And how can we look for opportunities for interest convergence between our movement so that we can we can create that so I am so grateful to all of you and your time, Rylee had to jump off. So people who are watching you’re like, wait a second, there’s only there’s only five people now. Rylee had to jump off but I know. She was on her way to go do other amazing things this evening. So grateful for your time, and I can’t wait to see all of you change the world. I have no doubt you will.

Mackenzie Lovell
Okay, thank you, Heather. And honestly, thank you for all of your support and giving us a platform like, I don’t know, you’re just like the image that’s for sure.

Heather Shea
I am so grateful for the time that all of the students spent with me today. Thank you so much for your time, your contribution to the conversation, also sending heartfelt appreciation to our dedicated behind the scenes assistance of our producer, Nat Ambrosey. Thank you Nat for everything you’re doing. If you’re listening today and not already receiving our weekly newsletter, please visit our website and scroll to the bottom of the page where you can add your email. And while you’re there, you should check out our growing archive. Thanks also to today’s sponsors, Routledge, Taylor and Francis is the award is the world’s leading academic publisher in education, publishing a wide variety of books, journals and other resources for practitioners, faculty, administrators and researchers. They’ve welcomed, Stylus publishing into their publishing program and are thrilled to enrich their offerings in higher education, teaching Student Affairs, professional development, assessment, and more. Routledge is proud to support the student affairs now podcast, and you can view their complete lineup of authoritative education titles at routledge.com/education. Huron our other sponsor is the global professional services firm that collaborates with clients to put possible into practice by creating found strategies optimizing operation, accelerating digital transformation and empowering businesses and their people to own their future by embracing diverse perspectives, encouraging new ideas, and challenging the status quo. Huron create sustainable results are the organizations they serve. Please take a moment to visit our website and click on the sponsors link to learn more. Again, I’m Heather Shea thanks to all of our listeners and to everybody who is watching. Make it a great week.

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