Pi Kappa Alpha Combats Alcohol Abuse with Mustangs Who Care

Sarah Acosta
sacosta@smu.edu

The Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity trained for the Mustangs Who Care program Sunday Oct. 25.

Started by Student Body President Patrick Kobler this school year, Mustangs Who Care trains already TIPS trained students to look for the signs of alcohol and drug overdose, to know the call for help programs on campus: the SMU Medical Amnesty and Good Samaritan policies, and how to handle a student in distress.

After training, students receive a red and blue bracelet with the words “Mustangs Who Care” on it, and they wear the wristbands during the day and out socially. If another student is in distress or a friend has a friend in distress they can easily locate a Mustang Who Cares student, and having been trained in the program he or she will know who to handle a life threatening situation.

People who get trained do not pledge to abstain from drinking alcohol, they pledge to drink responsibly.

Members from Pike and sorority Kappa Kappa Gamma were TIPS trained on campus by Megan Knapp, health educator in SMU’s Memorial Health Center.

Senior and president of Pike Chase Courtney said that the fraternity wants to show the faculty and students that Pike is trying to combat alcohol-related deaths and taking advantage of the necessary tools to prevent alcohol related injuries.

“We want to debunk the rumors that fraternities are concentrated solely on events surrounded by alcohol, and be an example to the rest of fraternities,” he said. “We take the goal of providing a safe environment for students very seriously.”

Origins

After all the task force recommendations and the school moving towards a more responsibility approach, Kobler said he thought it was time for students to take responsibility into their own hands. He thought the program had a realistic approach to combating substance abuse.

Kobler launched the program on October 1, 2009 after talking to Vice President of Student Affairs Dr. Lori White about another program in Stony Brook University, in New York. In that program they train people in CPR and it’s government ran.

“I wanted something that was unique to SMU. Something that would make more of a difference,” Kobler said.

Mustangs Who Care Makes Strides

“After today we’ll have close to 300 members, which I’m very happy about because we started October 1st- that’s almost as many people that we had TIPS trained all of last year,” Kobler said.

Last year there were 386 people who were TIPS trained on campus. There have been more people TIPS trained this year, and Kobler said they have found that it has been linked to the Mustangs Who Care program.

All SMU resident assistants have been trained. Training is held every Wednesday at 4:30 and Thursday at 5:30 in the SAMSA. Organizations are trained by request.

“All different people show up during the week for training. It’s been cool to see the dirversity of people who show up to get trained,” Kobler said.

Kobler said they usually have between four to five people show up on average for every training session, but get the big numbers from the large organizations.

Future of the Program

No other campuses have this program and Kobler said he is working on bringing it to other campuses and high schools.

Kobler said he hopes that SMU sets an example for students across the country because substance abuse is not a problem unique to SMU, it’s a problem on every single campus in the country.

“If we can step up and challenge substance abuse, then we can set an example for the rest of the country. At the end of the day this has the potential to save a life and that’s the most important thing.”