Issue link: http://latinschool.uberflip.com/i/246730
"My favorite memory of getting the sex ed curriculum off the ground was the day [upper school director] Truxton Hare got permission from the board of trustees for a unit on contraception. He had gotten prescriptions from a physician on the board for different kinds of birth control so he came and found me and said, 'Let's go get the equipment now.' At the time, there was a pharmacy across the street from the upper school. We went over there and picked out armfuls of contraception and birth control. As he was ringing us up, the pharmacist looked up, and in complete deadpan asked: 'Faculty party?'" – Susan Humphrey, who helped to start the sex education program in 1978. I came to interview. Within a half-hour of meeting with Edwin Van Gorder, I fell in love with the school and knew that this was a man I could work for." Humphrey expressed similar sentiments – of surprise and delight about the environment young teachers could expect – to a number of her contemporaries who started during the time. She quickly took advantage of Van Gorder's support to enhance the science classes that she was teaching with research time at the Shedd Aquarium and other outside-the-classroom experiences. Within the next few years, the board of trustees began exploring introducing a formal sex education program at Latin. Humphrey was invited to sit on a committee charged with writing the curriculum. "I believe I was asked to be part of the committee because I looked safe. I was married. I had a kid. I was a good Catholic school girl." Humphrey's approach to sex ed from the beginning, however, was a scientist's approach. She believed in being fully informative, straightforward and not mincing words. "If you bring the truth of matters to the forefront, tell students, 'This is what it is. This is how it works,' you avoid the whole problem with forbidden fruit." Initially, some parents were unhappy that boys and girls would be learning about sex together, and others were concerned about how far the curriculum would go. "We moved forward very gently and built a great deal of trust with parents and students," she said. Humphrey's open and factual approach and her focus on creating a supportive and respectful environment resulted in a strong program that evolved with the times and provided invaluable knowledge to students a decade later as HIV/AIDS emerged. Faculty and alumni alike also credit Humphrey with contributing to an atmosphere of tolerance for which Latin is widely known today. Parents, trustees and teachers were frequently alarmed by Edwin Van Gorder's laissez-faire ways. Susan Humphrey LATI N SCHOOL OF CHI CA GO 77