LEXINGTON, Ky. — In October, the University of Kentucky lost a student from presumed alcohol toxicity. In response, the university announced additional steps that the inter-fraternity council chapters would take to ensure the safety of students.
Corrine Williams, the acting associate vice president for student wellbeing at UK, says new training came after the passing of freshman Thomas “Lofton” Hazelwood.
“We put together a two-hour training session. And what we did was we had four parts to it,” Williams said.
With nearly 1,000 students attending, sessions included alcohol and drug use, hazing, bystander training and interpersonal violence.
“For example, the interpersonal violence case study. You’re walking home after a night out. You see a woman walking alone and suddenly there’s a man approaching her. You’re pretty sure they don’t know each other. You’re pretty sure she’s intoxicated. You think he’s trying to get her to go home with him? What do you do?” Williams said.
Williams says situations like these case studies encourage the students to think about their actions both on-campus and off-campus.
“Particularly within these fraternities, they’re in positions where they are possibly going to be around a situation and we wanted them to be prepared to deal with that situation,” Williams said.
Isaac Sutherland, a sophomore in the Chi Psi fraternity, said that after the incident with Hazelwood, the university had suspended many activities.
“We have to really nudge our guys to not only get out of bed and go to class in the morning, but we really need to get them to go to specific training to get us back on campus, it’s what we need to do,” Sutherland said.
Some of those changes included suspended interactions between new and returning members and attending the new required training.
“It was difficult for us as a fraternity to really understand how we can interact with these guys we’ve been with for six weeks and try to form this like a four year connection, if we can’t even talk to them, right? And there’s a lot of frustration behind that,” Sutherland said.
Williams and Sutherland say they hope the new training will build a deeper connection with fraternity & sorority Life staff and students by broadening conversations and creating a safe environment for everyone.
The Department of Student Wellbeing said they have about three hundred fraternity and sorority students left to train. From there, they hope to implement the training outside of Greek life and share it with the whole student body.
Editor's note: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated Corrine Williams as being with the University of Louisville, when she is actually with the University of Kentucky.