Oct 21, 2014 04:22 PM EDT By Russell Westerholm, UniversityHerald Reporter

Colgate University is offering its students a way to get out of those pesky physical education credits by allowing them to substitute a seminar on affirmative sexual consent.

According to Campus Reform, the "Yes Means Yes" (YMY) sexual consent seminar meets for six weeks every semester. While Colgate classifies the seminar as an "extracurricular program," the class can earn students credits for P.E.

The seminar began in 2009 as a student thesis and last month the state of Calif. passed its "Yes Means Yes" bill. The affirmative consent idea is now spreading in popularity, as New Hampshire has its own bill draft and Harvard students want their school to adopt such a policy.

"I've heard a lot about change and the entire campus seems committed to it," Caroline Boudreau, a sophomore at Colgate, told Campus Reform. "The frats and sororities are very active. It's not something every student is active with, but it is definitely something everyone supports and is aware of on campus."

For the class, students read from and discuss Jessica Valenti's book, "Yes Means Yes!" and share their own experiences in their own relationships. At the end of the semester, students will describe what they believe to be an ideal sexual climate on campus.

SB 967, Calif.'s "Yes Means Yes" bill, defines sexual consent as both partners consciously and voluntarily agreeing to the act. The bill says students cannot give sexual consent cannot be given if one or both partners are intoxicated, inebriated, unconscious or asleep.

In 2007, the U.S. Justice Department's National Institute of Justice published "The Campus Sexual Assault Study," which stated one in every five women in college experience sexual assault. That statistic has been featured heavily in President Obama's campaign to curb campus sexual assault.

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