A girl from one of my classes recently said this to me: "I'm so glad you told me about this. I wouldn't have come otherwise. I was sort of indifferent. I had no idea."

On Dec. 1, World AIDS Day events were held internationally to recognize the more than 36 million people
around the world who live with the Acquired Immunodeficiency
Syndrome (AIDS) and the virus that leads to it, the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV). The event also commemorated the estimated 22 million people, according to UNAIDS, who have lost their lives to the disease thus far.

This year, for the first time Penn State held comprehensive World AIDS Day events, including information tables, documentaries, a vigil, advocacy workshops and performances by several student groups.

The outpouring of support for World AIDS Day from the campus and community was overwhelming. The more than 100 sponsoring and co-sponsoring organizations represented a tremendous diversity of backgrounds and interests, including multicultural organizations, college-affiliated councils, professional societies, area student governments, religious groups, social action organizations, and fraternities and sororities.

This is representative of the fact that, as Penn State students, staff, and faculty and State College community members, AIDS is something we all must be concerned about.

When we first hear the numbers, it's easy to become disconnected. It's hard to conceptualize what it might be like to live in a society in which half of teenagers will die of AIDS before reaching age 50. It's difficult to fathom that, if left unchecked, AIDS,
UNIFEM estimates, could leave 40 million AIDS orphans worldwide by the year 2010.

AIDS is sometimes thought of as something that only happens to people in other countries or that only impacts people of certain ethnicities or sexual preferences.

This is not true.

AIDS cuts across ethnicity, sexuality, gender, religion, socioeconomic class and geographic region. It does not discriminate.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the American College Health Association, about one in 500 American college students is infected with HIV.

If national estimates were true for our University Park student population of about 40,000, this would mean about 80 of our classmates are HIV-positive.

On the evening of Dec. 1, to the backdrop of six colorful squares of AIDS quilt in Alumni Hall, which is part of 44,000 squares created nationwide to memorialize those who have lost their lives due to AIDS, one vigil speaker put a human face to these statistics. A Penn State student gave a gripping account about what it was like to find out he was HIV-positive two months ago.

"How will you respond when you see me walk by on-campus?" he asked the audience. He urged us not to be afraid to get HIV-testing and offered his encouragement and support to anyone doing so.

Sometimes it is easy to forget that behind every number is someone's father, daughter, boyfriend, wife, cousin, aunt, neighbor or friend.

The AIDS quilt also served as the setting for another vigil speaker, a State College community member who discussed what it is like to live with HIV. He decided to talk about his experiences with HIV upon realizing the AIDS quilt squares brought to Penn State, each created in the central Pennsylvania region, symbolized the lives of people he knew.

He urged Penn State students to help raise awareness and educate others about HIV/AIDS.

These accounts should open our minds, our perspectives and our hearts. And although the extent of AIDS can seem overwhelming, we must draw strength from one key and central fact: we have the power to fight back. While HIV is not curable, it is preventable.

According to the CDC, the factors that put college students at highest risk for HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) are unprotected sex and failing to use condoms correctly and consistently. Sharing of needles is another factor in the spread of HIV. It is not possible to tell if someone has HIV/AIDS only by looking at them.

We can protect ourselves. Organizations such as University Health Services and The AIDS Project, 315 S. Allen St., provide free condoms and other resources to protect against infection from HIV/AIDS and other STDs. These organizations also provide free HIV-testing.

We must also protect our friends and family by talking to them about HIV/AIDS and its causes.

At the same time, it is important to note the ways in which it is not possible to contract HIV. You cannot, according to the CDC, get HIV from hugging someone who is HIV-positive, through shaking hands, sharing drinks or the sneezing and coughing of an infected person. A lack of understanding of the causes of HIV/AIDS has led to a high degree of stigma and discrimination.

This year's international World AIDS Day theme -- "Live and Let Live" -- has been a call to educate others and fight the painful discrimination frequently suffered by individuals living with HIV/AIDS. HIV-positive individuals have a right to live and work with dignity and respect.

The touching, courageous accounts of the individuals that spoke at the vigil serve as a definitive call to all of us - the entire Penn State and State College community -- to avoid stereotypes and to fight to eradicate discrimination in its many forms.

It is imperative that we take the lessons learned from World AIDS Day and apply them to our everyday lives. Although World AIDS Day happens only once a year, the fight against AIDS occurs on a daily basis.

In the week and a half that has
gone by since World AIDS Day, more than 50,000 additional people have
lost their lives due to AIDS, and double this amount have become infected
with HIV, according to UNAIDS estimates.

"Seven-thousand people dying every day is not a cause," stated rock star and AIDS activist Bono in September. "It's an emergency."

This is the crisis of our generation. It's an emergency we all have a role in halting.