Tuesday March 5, the Counseling Center, in collaboration with other departments, held an event for students to have a safe and enjoyable Spring Break.
According to Reagan Foster, counselor at the Counseling Center, Safe Spring Break is an event geared towards informing students about alcohol safety.
“It is really good for universities on a hold to work with students on alcohol awareness, to make good decisions,” Foster said. “Doing an event like this before Spring Break will be beneficial to the students.”
Having this event is extremely vital for students safety.
“It’s important to have this event to get students thinking about making good and responsible choices in regards to alcohol.” Foster said. “It provides an opportunity for us to have a healthy conversation with students about making good choices.”
According to Foster, MSU is a state institution that does not promote alcohol but does not have rules against the consumption of alcohol once students are of age, but they should to be mindful of it.
She encourages students to take the time to visit the Counseling Center if they have any questions or concerns regarding alcohol consumption.
“We would love for our students to come to us if they have questions.” Foster said. “We also want to be real about the effects of alcohol like driving and alcohol poisoning.”
Foster makes it certain that alcohol was not the only focus of the Safe Spring Break event. There were a lot of activities during the day for students to participate in. Different departments around campus will be setting up various booths with different types of awareness activities.
Debra Higginbotham, director of Disability Support Services said that the DSS brought the Sheppard Air Force Base Sexual Assault and Prevention Response Unit, led by Tech Sgt. Simon Fancher, to teach the students self-defense tips.
“They taught students how to make themselves a harder targets for anyone to assault them,” Higginbotham said.
SAPR also demonstrated to students how to yell when feeling threatened and what to be aware of when talking on the phone.
“Girls were educated on how to carry their purses to fend off any attention,” Higginbotham said.
According to Cammie Dean, director of the Student Development and Orientation Center, the center contributed a photo booth for the Safe Spring Break event.
Joey Greenwood, director of Recreational Sports and Wellness Center sent a student worker to the event to talk about fitness and nutrition.
MSU’s campus police also took part in the event.
According to Chief of Police Dan Williams, the MSU Police Department helped the other departments organize activities for the event. One such activity conducted involved intoxicated goggles. The goggles stimulated students to give them an effect as if they were drinking. The students then demonstrated an intoxicated person’s behavior.
Foster added that the goggles display the student’s blood alcohol content while steering a golf cart on an obstacle course.
The police department also worked with Mothers Against Drunk Driving. Cars were displayed that were wrecked by texting and driving or drunken driving.
T-shirts, free food and lots of prizes were also distributed at the event. Students were also asked to take a pledge to be safe during the break.
“We are giving our pledge cards that we want people to sign saying that they will make safe and good choices and take care of themselves and others,” Foster said.
Safe Spring Break goes into the night where there will be a special guest speaker. At 8 p.m., a former MSU student Sean Carter, who was in an alcohol-related car accident in 2005, will be speaking about his experience.
Foster urges every student to attend this event.
“I wanted every student who would be on campus at that time to go, because he [Carter] is one of our own and his life was forever changed,” Foster said.
Each department hopes that these events had a great impact on MSU students.
“I hope it will, to make students aware of things they can do to keep themselves safe during Spring Break,” Greenwood said.
“We wanted to educate the students on what to be cautious of when they go out on Spring Break.” Williams said. “If we don’t do it, we know we didn’t have an impact, but if we do, we know that we at least did something,” Williams said.
“I hope that they all make a conscious choice.” Foster said. “Think before you do something.”
Foster had some final encouraging words for students.
“I think it shows students that we care about them. We care about what they do when they are not here, and we want them to be safe. It doesn’t matter if they are living here or they are living off-campus. We want them to do things to take care of themselves.”