Author: Faryn Borella
Two students were transported to the hospital due to alcohol overconsumption Saturday, the night of Programming Board’s “Shipwrecked” dance, according to the Campus Safety Incident Reports. This is six fewer hospital transports than fall semester’s “Splatter” dance, which received considerable negative press in the local news.
The administration and Programming Board enacted many changes in order to ensure the safety of students at Shipwrecked.
EMTs and other medical staff were on site for the entirety of the event as a proactive rather than reactionary measure.
Re-entry was also granted to students, allowing them to exit and enter the dance as they pleased.
“I, personally, was adamant about making it a reentry event so that if people were too drunk, they could leave and get food and water, etc. and people wouldn’t be bent on trying to drink enough at once to stay drunk for the entire dance,” Programming Board Programming Assistant Emily Birnbaum (senior) said.
Friends Just Ask, a new student group which promotes a student environment in which friends help friends in tenuous alcohol-related situations, put on an awareness campaign prior to the event to promote a safer drinking culture on campus.
By approaching other groups on campus like Occidental’s Greek Council as well as hanging posters around campus, the organization hoped to send its message of safe drinking to the greatest volume of students before Saturday’s dance.
“I think Programming Board and Friends Just Ask both did an effective job of promoting the event and sent a message to have fun and take care of yourself and your friends. And I think it showed with the outcome of Shipwrecked,” Director of Student Life Tamara Rice said.
“Shipwrecked” is the amended title for Occidental’s annual “Sex on the Beach” dance.
Birnbaum decided to change the name due to student complaints about the lack of a theme in past years, as well as the elevated incidence rate of sexual assault at past “Sex on the Beach” dances.
“Because of the name of the dance and its implications, Project Safe has been at Sex on the Beach in past years in order to provide a safe presence,” Birnbaum said. Project SAFE, a sexual assault prevention group, would have students sign a pledge that held them to a standard of respect and good conduct.
However, Project SAFE was unable to attend this year.
“It made me uncomfortable to keep the name of the dance without them there,” Birnbaum said.
Birnbaum and other student organizers decided to change the name of the dance to “Shipwrecked” in order to shed negative connotations associated with Sex on the Beach and to provide for a more interesting theme.
“Judging by the costumes, it really was a better name for the dance. People were a lot more creative than past years,” Birnbaum said.
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