Greek speaker talks drinking behaviors, lowering risks
College can be a time of exploration and discovery, said Lori Hart, a keynote speaker for CAMPUSPEAK. She said college should not be a time of recklessness and unnecessarily risky behavior.
CAMPUSPEAK is a nationwide provider of educational speakers and workshops. Hart, Director of prevention education for the national Pi Kappa Phi fraternity, has been with CAMPUSPEAK since 1999 and specializes in sorority and fraternity life and campus drinking cultures.
Nathan Romans | Argonaut
CAMPUSPEAK presenter Lori Hart speaks to greek housing leaders during the Risk Management Training
event Monday in the Bruce Pitman Center Vandal Ballroom, formerly the Student Union Building.
Hart spoke at a seminar Monday where University of Idaho Greek chapter presidents, risk managers, social chairs and chapter advisers learned about ways to reduce risks while still having a good time.
Risk management is important to the Greek community because it keeps the charter open, Hart said. It prevents Greek members from getting alcohol poisoning or going to jail. It also prevents a Greek organization from getting sued.
“At the end of the day, the word I use is ‘safety,'” Hart said.
Hart has a Ph.D. in higher education from Georgia State University and is an active volunteer in the nation’s Greek community. She was in a sorority when she was an undergraduate student and now speaks to fraternities and sororities about some of her experiences.
Years ago, when one of her fellow sorority members was the subject of a disciplinary hearing, Hart said the subject was behavior. Now, she said the subject of many contemporary issues is what an individual posts on social media — the risky behavior is still there, but it is not being addressed, Hart said.
“Are we addressing the behavior, or are we monitoring social media?” Hart said.
One of the riskiest activities is drinking, according to Hart and a majority of students at the seminar agreed. Not every event put on by a fraternity or sorority has alcohol, yet she said it’s still a major part of college life and should be consumed safely.
Hart said in order to combat some of the risks of drinking at parties, people should bring their own alcohol and check it into a storage area when they arrive — or a third party vendor should be hired to provide the alcohol to people who are over 21 years old. She said doing this would allow people to know exactly what they are drinking and how much alcohol is in each drink.
Hart said the problem is not alcohol, but instead that men and women have a fear of talking to the opposite sex without alcohol.
“(Men and women) are always going to socialize together,” Hart said. “(You) are scared to death to have a conversation and get to know each other without alcohol.”
The environment and the people in the environment dictate drinking and interpersonal behavior, Hart said. If a party is full of people who like to drink just to get drunk, then more people at the party will drink excessively, which she said is a classic example of peer pressure.
“Our behaviors are the results of our beliefs,” said Marty Anderson, chapter adviser for Lambda Chi Alpha.
In order to prevent drinking from becoming a problem, Hart said she suggests Greek members host an event and come up with activities to break the ice without the use of alcohol.
“Y’all have gotten pretty damn lazy creating environments where the only thing to do is get drunk,” Hart said.
At the end of the day, it all comes down to risk management, Hart said. If a fraternity or sorority follows the rules and makes sure everyone is safe at the events, it will go a long way toward solving some of the problems the Greek system faces.
“We have a lot of problems in fraternities and sororities,” Hart said. “There is a lot we can do in this community to focus on safety.”
Graham Perednia can be reached at [email protected]