Seeking help can avoid trouble

Until you have wandered the corners of the Quadrangle for hours on end, eaten fried Oreos to the point of physical illness and participated in all that Spring Fling has to offer, you can hardly call yourself a Penn student.

And although the Quad is filled to the brim with students during Fling, it is simple to make a crowd disappear in an instant -- just show people a University official.

In an attempt to make a positive change to the destructive Fling culture, the Social Planning and Events Committee expanded last year's 130-member Team Sober to create FlingSafe, which has more than 250 volunteers this year. The group assigns students to monitor the Quad during Fling for potential health risks.

This year's name change indicates that the goal of the FlingSafe initiative is to support responsible behavior without assuming that students will abandon the drinking culture that surrounds Fling. The growth of FlingSafe this year indicates an increasing sense of responsibility among students who are prepared be held accountable for a safer Fling culture.

But, unlike University officials, FlingSafe volunteers are not around to police students, take down names or get anyone in trouble.

"We don't want [FlingSafe] to be a Narc Force," said SPEC Fling co-Director and College junior Makeda Kefale, who is on FlingSafe's steering board. "We don't want students telling on each other and getting each other in trouble. We want them intervening and diffusing problems before someone with authority has to address the problem."

Students receive citations and other punishment for their behavior only when University authority figures are called to a situation. FlingSafe volunteers are only there to help.

As a volunteer this year, I was surprised by some of the facts about student safety at Fling that I was unaware of last year -- mainly that groups organized to promote safety, including FlingSafe volunteers and student emergency medical technicians, should not be feared or avoided. And to ensure that Fling doesn't go down as a long-lost Penn tradition, students should utilize the supportive Fling staff rather than ignore situations until they escalate to a dangerous level.

The FlingSafe volunteers, who will be entirely sober for their 2.5-hour shifts, can be used to get water or medical aid to a drunk or injured friend. And this year, all FlingSafe volunteers will have walkie-talkies and will be able to call the AlliedBarton security guards -- who also won't get you in trouble -- to prevent a situation from getting out of hand.

But mutual respect is the key to the continued success of the FlingSafe initiative.

The FlingSafe staff is "not there to bust everyone, but to monitor what happens," Kefale said. "It's your peers who are telling you to take it down a notch. That peer-to-peer influence is key because there's no adversarial relationship there."

And although students should not use Penn's alcohol policy as an excuse to drink excessively, the University policy also protects student rights. It states that "no student seeking medical treatment for an alcohol or other drug-related overdose will be subject to University discipline for the sole violation of using or possessing alcohol or drugs."

And you can't get in trouble for helping friends, either.

It is unnecessary for groups of Penn students to disperse like a school of fish after they call for help. The University alcohol policy was designed to avoid this, and the FlingSafe staff is a harmless and helpful resource during Fling.

FlingSafe volunteers are not the only ones who can contribute to a safer Fling. If everyone is a little more careful and a little more responsible for their behavior this weekend, we can start to reverse the negative opinion that many University officials have about the festival. And using the peer-to-peer support of FlingSafe is a step in the right direction.

We are lucky to have Fling in the Quad this year -- so let's make sure at the end of Fling that this decision will still be free from criticism. There are numerous students and officials roaming the Quad who are only there to help you.

You can use them and respect them -- and still get your Fling on.

Anna Hartley is a sophomore comparative literature and French major from Palo Alto, Calif. Penn's Annatomy appears on Tuesdays.

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