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Eighty-Three Collegiate Chapters Participate in Alcohol, Hazing, and Sexual Assault Prevention Program: Chi Omega Fraternity Implements Online Program to Assist Members in Making Safe and Healthy Decisions
Chi Omega has a responsibility to help ensure the safety of our members. Instead of allowing these issues to affect our chapters, Chi Omega is trying to get ahead of the problem by educating members about the dangers associated with high-risk drinking, hazing, and sexual assault and providing appropriate prevention programs and resources to students.
GreekLifeEduTM provides an experience that impacts both individual behavior and community culture. Relying on evidence-based prevention methods, learner-centered pedagogy, and up-to-date science-based content, GreekLifeEduTM provides each member with a carefully customized user experience that inspires members to reflect on and consider changing their behaviors. Using IM chats and You-Tube-like videos, the course communicates in ways that make sense to today's millennial members, presenting content in entertaining formats devised to increase student engagement and interest.
Through GreekLifeEdu, members learn what is in a "standard drink," different factors that affect Blood Alcohol Concentration (BAC), how to help a friend who experiences an alcohol overdose, and guidelines for being a safe party host. Next, students learn to identify different forms of hazing and have access to state-by-state laws related to this issue. The final module of GreekLifeEduTM presents the facts and myths surrounding sexual assault. The female pathway confronts perceived social norms about female behaviors and attitudes, and encourages positive protective behaviors among women. Video scenarios give members tools to intervene when a friend is in a dangerous situation and to seek help when a friend has been assaulted.
The Chi Omega Foundation underwrites this program as part of the Fraternity's multi-pronged approach to substance abuse awareness and education. This year, the West and Panhandle regions were underwritten by The Saunders Foundation. (Family members of this foundation are initiates of Chi Omega's Iota Chapter at the University of Texas.)
About Outside The Classroom
For nearly a decade, Outside The Classroom has been committed to strengthening the field of alcohol prevention by providing institutions and Greek organizations with the information needed to develop well-informed, cost-effective strategies for reducing alcohol-related risk and preventing harm. Today, the organization's online educational programs, AlcoholEdu® for College and GreekLifeEduTM, are used on hundreds of campuses and by 36 percent of all first-year students at America's higher education institutions. In 2008, Outside The Classroom launched The Alcohol Prevention Coalition to take on the larger scope of the work-providing institution-wide solutions to the key challenges threatening effective alcohol prevention. All of Outside The Classroom's programs are developed under the leadership of national prevention expert William DeJong, PhD. For more information please visit www.outsidetheclassroom.com.