INDIANAPOLIS — Hailey Macke is a resident assistant with a laundry list of things to tell the freshmen moving into her college dormitory this weekend.
Among them are rules that ban underage drinking and forbid alcohol on campus. She’ll also tell them: If you see somebody in trouble because they’ve had too much drink, don’t be afraid to intervene. You might save a life.
“The key part of responsibility is response,” said Macke, 23, a senior at Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis. “You can’t assume that somebody else is going to act.”
Macke and other IUPUI student leaders have been trained as part of a new initiative that encourages bystander intervention to reduce alcohol’s harmful consequences. The program’s goal is to encourage students to stop bad behavior before it crosses the line from drunken partying to something worse — and what to do if that line is crossed.
Program supporters hope it does to campus culture what the designated driver campaign has done to reduce drunken driving deaths. Both campaigns acknowledge that drinking to excess can’t be stopped, but some of the terrible collateral damage can.
Planning for the program began a year ago, when an Indiana University freshman died hours after falling down a flight stairs at an off-campus party on the weekend before classes started. Friends, who thought the young woman was drunk, waited hours before calling for an ambulance.
Since 2012, Indiana law has given underage students immunity from prosecution for alcohol-related offenses if they seek help for someone in need. Known as the Lifeline Law, it was expanded this year to include drug-related and other emergencies.
But IUPUI officials wondered if enough students knew about the law, or if they did, if they had the courage or knowledge to intervene.
“The last thing you want are people standing around debating whether to call for help,” said Eric Teske, the IUPUI counselor who coordinates the program. “But that’s what people do. Too often they just don’t know how to respond.”
Teske got a $30,000, three-year grant for IUPUI from the NCAA to start the peer training for students in how to recognize and act on potentially dangerous situations. It includes knowing when to call police if someone appears ill, and stepping in early to discourage binge drinking. It also includes training on how to prevent or stop the sexual assault of an intoxicated student.
The IUPUI initiative is part of a larger student-led effort on campus called “JAGNATION: A Culture of Care” which aims to create a safe environment on a campus that has record freshmen enrollment this year.
“We want a culture that says ‘I’ve got your back,’” Teske said.
The NCAA has funded programs to counter alcohol abuse on campuses for more than 20 years, after it came under criticism for not doing enough to break the link between drinking and athletic events. Mary Wilfert, administrator of the NCAA’s drug education and testing programs, said the problem cannot be addressed in isolation.
“An effort targeting one group of students isn’t as effective as working some of the larger environmental issues and engaging all of the campus constituents in the effort,” said Wilfert.
The NCAA has funded similar bystander intervention programs, modeled on one developed by the University of Arizona in the 1970s. Researchers there found that even well intentioned bystanders don’t always respond when seeing someone else in trouble because they don’t know what to do, or they fear the consequences of getting involved.
The dilemma is magnified on campuses, where a culture celebrates drinking to excess among young people who may have had little experience with alcohol before leaving home.
Since 2004, more than two-dozen Hoosiers under age 21 have died from alcohol poisoning, according to the state Department of Health. The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism estimates there are 1,700 deaths every year from heavy drinking on campus.
Many of those deaths might have been avoided if someone had intervened, said state Sen. Jim Merritt, R-Indianapolis, who authored the Lifeline law and applauds IUPUI’s efforts.
“The first two weeks of school always scare me,” said Merritt. “You’ve got a lot of new students experiencing independence and freedom for the first time. And they’ll be tempted to do things they’d never do at home.”
On Monday, Merritt is announcing a new effort to publicize the Lifeline Law on college campuses throughout Indiana.
“It’s a bad decision not to step in to help someone in trouble,” he said. “Especially when you know that a decision you make can change the course for good.”