Many Chapel Hill partygoers are familiar with the practice of specifying sober brothers at fraternity functions to maintain safety and protect property.
This duty often falls largely upon the shoulders of those lowest down on a fraternity’s totem pole — its pledges or freshman members, who are sometimes ill-equipped to handle such duties.
To increase members’ overall competency, UNC’s Interfraternity Council should provide a risk-reduction program for all new members.
IFC-led party training for new members is already being implemented at Vanderbilt University, and UNC should adopt a similar model.
Training would occur after fraternities have finalized their new classes every fall and spring semester. In past years, the IFC has hosted speakers and training modules, similar in format to the most recent sexual assault reduction module. Still, the IFC could find more constructive ways to talk about risk reduction.
Possible elements of the program might include basic first aid training and strategies for identifying vital signs like pulse or respiration levels. It could also be useful to educate pledges of the symptoms and indicators of drug overdose, which could help them identify risk and calmly control a difficult situation.
UNC has a lot to gain by emphasizing risk reduction, particularly at relatively high-risk occasions like fraternity parties.
