Alcohol Programming within the Greek Community.
 

I am currently working on a campus as the Educator for Drug and Alcohol Education and I really want to utilize greek life as a way to promote more responsible behaviors.

I work on a campus where only half of the fraternities are housed and none of the sororities so a lot of parties happen off campus but still can have a tie to greek life due to the presence of it's members.

I know each chapter has it's own risk management policies and alcohol policies but I have been interested in working on a code of conduct and responsibility within the greek community, based more on mutual respect and identifying problem behaviors. I was wondering if anyone has any experience with something like this existing on their current campus or know of any type of all greek programming that exists.

My goal is to move greek life past a "CYA" style of looking at dealing with alcohol situations but looking at it in a healthy way for greek life.

KDMafia, I'm actually a Chemical Dependency Therapist and I work with some college students, as my office is right down the street from a major university. In fact, I may be working with Greek Life to go speak with the various houses on campus. If you have any questions, please feel free to pm me. I will say this, though--Just because it doesn't show up in your urine doesn't mean it isn't dangerous. You won't believe how often I have heard that.

I had some guy at the shore try to sell me both bath salts and spice. If you don't know anything about either--I will explain the effects, if you'd like. Kids are vodka-eyeballing (and other areas I'd rather not mention) and getting wet. If you've heard the term and don't know much about it--now is the time to learn. I can give some information about that but, just be aware that this stuff does happen.

I think the biggest thing is education- Chi Omega nationally participated in Greek Life Edu, which is an alcohol/hazing/sexual assualt ed initiative, and while a lot of it was pretty cursory, there were some things I was surprised to learn. For example, I didn't know anything about social host laws- laws where, if you are hosting a party and someone gets injured/dies as a result of alcohol you serve, you are responsible legally and can be charged with a crime. This could be a good thing to make people aware of, especially since parties tend to be off campus. I would also educate people on what constitutes alcohol poisoning and when to get help, and if possible, include statistics from your campus about drug and alcohol related accidents/hospitalizations. You could also include information on your school's punishment system for drug and alcohol violations, particularly if it has "amnesty" features where you can get help for someone who needs it without repercussions. All of this information is helpful/practical and may not be widely known, so hopefully it wouldn't come across as "just another alcohol thing." As far as sharing this information, I would recommend presentations for each chapter, along with distributing printed materials. If you cannot get every chapter on board, try offering incentives for participation (free food!) and encourage chapter presidents and risk managers to make the event mandatory.

Good luck!

Hannah,

Most of the chapters are very good at training their members or handling their own situations. Where I want to stress is situations where they are not the host. For example, Everyone wants everyone to be on their best behavior at their social events, but the minute they get invited to someone elses they behave in a negative way. Also, issues of bringing people to parties hosted off campus and then abandoning them, or not being responsible. Pre gaming before non alcoholic events and then causing problems, etc etc. Mostly working to engender the same respect for other organizations that they have for their own