SOUTHEAST PRESIDENT ALTERS ITEMS IN GIFT BOXES

Southeast Missouri State University President Dr. Dale Nitzschke has ordered the condoms removed from the "welcome back to school" gift boxes given students.

Nitzschke ordered the condoms removed Thursday from gift boxes distributed to students at the textbook rental service in the University Center.

"We are not in the business of handing out condoms here," he said. "We are not suggesting that we will call the shots on the sex life of students here."

Students can buy condoms at cost at the university's Center for Health and Counseling, but Nitzschke said that is different because it is a voluntary transaction on the part of students.

The gift boxes were provided by an East Coast marketing firm, MarketSource Corp., that has provided the gift boxes to Southeast students at the start of the fall semester for the past 10 years, said Loren Rullman, who directs student auxiliary services and the University Center at Southeast.

The gift boxes include samples of a number of products, such as cough medicine, aspirin and deodorants.

"It is sort of like a welcome to campus," Rullman said. "There are some good things in there for students," but this was the first year that each box included a condom."

Rullman said his staff wasn't aware condoms would be included in the gift boxes.

MarketSource provides student gift boxes to about 1,200 colleges each fall, with the cost borne by the companies whose products are advertised in the gift pack.

Southeast received 2,500 gift boxes, and over the course of about a week, students had picked up 2,050 of them.

As of Thursday morning, only 450 remained to be distributed, but by midmorning, Nitzschke had ordered the staff to remove the condoms from the remaining boxes.

Nitzschke said he wasn't aware until Thursday morning the gift boxes included condoms.

The condoms will be given to the health center, school officials said.

Nitzschke said one angry parent had telephoned a staff member to complain about the condoms in the gift boxes.

A student later complained to Nitzschke about the decision to remove the condoms, but Nitzschke said he felt he made the right decision.