Kegs filled with root beer? Medicine bottles filled with candy?
These are just two of the tools a new group is using to help educate Lipscomb students about avoiding and overcoming risky behaviors.
Awareness at Lipscomb University is an organization run out of the Campus Life office. Faculty member Sam Smith started ALU last spring, with fellow staff member Kristin Blankenship helping to facilitate its growth.
This semester, Ryan Bowen, president of the organization, says ALU is “moving more towards completely student led.”
“Basically, Sam has said ‘here’s the topics I want to hit,’” Bowen said. The topics were ones Smith had seen many students struggling with when they came to Campus Life: alcohol abuse, drug use, sexual activity and unhealthy living.
When it began last year, Bowen said there were 11 in the group, but that number quickly fell off by about half.
Bowen said they held a couple of events but were still feeling out how to implement the club’s mission statement of “ALU will increase awareness at Lipscomb University of behaviors that negatively impact students’ academic performance, healthy living and community expectations.”
Today, Bowen cites growth from the 5 or 6 members that remained at the end of last semester up to 10 this year. The group meets weekly, often calling in training from leadership workshops to learn to better approach the student body. Bowen said the training helps to facilitate creativity and ideas for events.
Previously this semester, ALU sought to educate Lipscomb students on alcohol by distributing root beer floats from a root beer keg in the Student Center. Bowen says ALU will host an event on drug abuse later this semester, where the club will pass out prescription medication bottles filled with candy and facts about drug abuse.