Adam and Christopher interview Fred Dobry, the Director of Health and Safety for Sigma Nu Fraternity, Inc., to talk about the #SafeSpringBreak campaign. Fred shares insight into the Fraternity's participation in the Harm Reduction Alliance, the purpose and impact of the #SafeSpringBreak campaign, and other health and safety resources and support available to our collegiate members and chapter volunteers.
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The Gavel Podcast - Ep 15 – The #SafeSpringBreak Campaign with Fred Dobry (Indiana State)
[Intro Music]
0:00:42.4 Adam Girtz: Hello and welcome to the latest episode of The Gavel Podcast. I'm Adam.
0:00:46.1 Christopher Brenton: And I'm Christopher.
0:00:47.2 Adam Girtz: The Gavel Podcast is the official podcast of Sigma Nu Fraternity. And it's a show dedicated to keeping you updated on the operations of the Legion of Honor and connecting you to the stories of the brotherhood.
0:00:56.9 Christopher Brenton: To find out more from the fraternity, you can always check out our website at sigmanu.org. You can also find us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter @SigmaNuHQ, or by searching for Sigma Nu Fraternity.
0:01:07.5 Adam Girtz: Christopher, a very special episode today. All of our episodes are special episodes, but this one's particularly special.
0:01:14.6 Christopher Brenton: Special by the special guest.
0:01:16.3 Adam Girtz: Yes. And our special guest, I was going to set you up to introduce our special guest, but we're playing doubles tennis here and you just set me up and now I'm set up to introduce our special guest, which is Fred Dobry, our Director of Health and Safety for the General Fraternity of Sigma Nu, member of our Iota Psi Chapter at Indiana State. Fred, welcome to The Gavel Podcast.
0:01:40.3 Fred Dobry: Thank you. Hey, it's an honor. Instead of doubles it’s really two on one. So, I'll do my best to try to ward off any aggressive volleys.
0:01:48.0 Adam Girtz: Fred, welcome to the beginning of The Gavel Podcast, normally Christopher and I record and set up the introduction and then dive straight into an interview. But we're lucky to have you here for the opening of the podcast. So, you know, really what I'd like to do before we dive into our topic for the month, is just hear a little bit about you and your Sigma Nu story. We like to have our guests share that, so Fred, could you just share quickly your Sigma Nu story with us and with our listeners?
0:02:22.8 Fred Dobry: [chuckle] Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So, well thank you guys for having me, in all seriousness this is... I've had many opportunities to do cool things as a member of Sigma Nu and as a member of the staff team, being interviewed for a podcast is a new one. And it's kind of cool getting to do this. So looking forward to our time this afternoon and can't wait to see all the clicks and dozens and dozens of views, we'll see on Spotify and other various platforms. [chuckle]
0:02:50.8 Fred Dobry: But my journey began... This seriously starts making me sound and feel very old, a lot older than I used to feel, because now we're starting to have staff are getting born around the time in which I joined Sigma Nu, which is insane to say that out loud. But I joined in fall of 2003 at Indiana State University. And I connected with a guy who went to my high school, Maryville High School, the pirates, purple and white were our colors, which as a young teenager I was very self-conscious about, but we got over that and I got to play on the basketball team and have some fun, but I knew, this guy, Josh Everett, and I stumbled upon him, I went visiting Sigma Nu and bounced around the fraternity houses. And he gave me a tour of the house and kind of introduced me to some of the other guys, like so many other stories of guys and how they joined Sigma Nu and the fraternity that they ended up joining whichever it may end up being. And it just felt like this is a great place and it could be a cool new home for me. I had never... None of my family went to college and so I had very little expectations of what college would look like besides what I'd seen in the movies.
0:04:03.2 Fred Dobry: Certainly, I've heard maybe some from some friends and certainly I had no expectation. I would join a fraternity like so many of our stories, but he kind of got me hooked right at the beginning and it kind of took off from there and I just got initiated at the beginning of the next semester, had intentions of just kind of being just a general member. I didn't have much confidence as a leader or anything of that nature but for whatever reason, because our chapter had no one else to attend, our Commander at the time asked if I could come with him that summer to attend the 64th, I think, Grand Chapter, might have been 63rd Grand Chapter in 2004 in St. Louis, Missouri. When I went to that, I was hooked way beyond just to being involved in and loving my time at Indiana State, my chapter there but I realized this is way bigger than just what we were doing at Indiana State. I walked in into the Grand Chapter hall and seeing this massive Sigma Nu flag and seeing the three founders’ portraits hung from a ballroom wall. And seeing these guys from California to Maine, to Washington, to Florida and all the States in between, all having that same kind of shared values and commitment that we all had made to be a part of this thing was just like, it rocked my world.
0:05:31.5 Fred Dobry: So as many of the guys I say that I came back from that like, brainwashed in terms of just my Sigma Nu affinity and how I viewed the Fraternity, and actually that's where I started getting involved and started expanding and beginning my kind of leadership journey in Sigma Nu. I went to a session at Grand Chapter, that was about this philanthropy event that the National Fraternity was beginning to partner with called College Charity Bowl by a Brother Carol Carpenter out of Ole Miss, it was an expansion, a national expansion of what Ole Miss had done for years with the College Charity Bowl on their campus with the football game that they did, they raised funds for some local benefactors. And they were expanding it to a national audience. And so I went to the session. I thought, "Man we should do that at Indiana State. I'm going to be the guy."
0:06:21.1 Fred Dobry: I bring it back to Indiana State, and basically create the event and do a bunch of work and all the stuff, and from there though, I started gaining some leadership experience and most importantly, some leadership confidence and started getting interested in and potentially serving in other capacities within the chapter, and so from there, kind of went to beginning in officer roles, eventually becoming a Lieutenant Commander, then Commander, an IFC President and then eventually an intern for the Headquarters when we used to have an intern program. So I spent my Summer 2006 with Nathaniel Harvey Clarkson, former Director of Communications for the Fraternity, another legendary Mighty Oak of the Fraternity’s ranks. And that summer worked to the 2006 Grand Chapter as an intern, and then and it was fortunate enough following that Grand Chapter to be selected to serve as a Collegiate Grand Councilman in the high council. And so it just kind of this crazy escalation of my involvement, which all really goes back to the 2004 and attending that Grand Chapter, and then from being an intern and then being on a High Council, I really became more intimately aware of the staff team, the people on the team and what they did and what opportunities that it presented.
0:07:44.1 Fred Dobry: I was a Business Management major at Indiana State, and I had all this interest of serving in a consulting firm, so one of the big ones like Accenture or some of the other ones out there of just going in and getting hired by clients and trying to identify and solve problems that those clients had and had a lot of interest me, and that's what I thought I would do with my career, at least where I thought I'd start my career. And when I learned about this leadership consultant position. I said, "Well, hey, wait a second, I would get assigned a certain number of chapters or “small businesses,” in many respects," and I'd go in and help them figure out what their problems are and help work with them to find solutions to those problems. I mean probably have a lot more autonomy to doing that, than I would at some big major consulting firm, and so there's a lot of interest out in that and plus, I had the opportunity to go travel part of the country that I had not seen. I was mainly born and bred in Northwest Indiana, and most of my life the only place that we had ever traveled to is Chicago and Indy and some parts of Michigan and so the idea that I could right out of college, get this job that I would have a lot of independence and being able to execute the roles that were assigned to me and then travel the country and get to see places that maybe I would never see otherwise.
0:09:02.1 Fred Dobry: I was in, so I applied to that and luckily got selected and then thought it'd be a year and a half gig, like many of us more tenured staff members, and that's why I told my... At then... At that point, fiancé who I proposed to right before I departed the road for consulting and say, "Hey, bear with me, I'll be gone for about 18 months, but when I'm back, we'll go do the thing we thought we'd do. It's just I'll go get the real job, and go move down to Chicago and we'll start our lives in Chicago, as a married couple," and after 18 months of consulting, some conversations, I had an opportunity to move into the Director of Risk Reduction role, and somehow I convinced my wife Kelli to move to Lexington to live at, live there to do risk reduction for no more than three years, which I ended up doing for seven years in Lexington before, [chuckle] finally relenting, after we had our first child and moved back to Northwest Indiana to be nearby family, and fortunately, I was able to make a remote arrangement work for that and remain Director of Risk Reduction for a little while before transitioning to my current role of Director of Health and Safety, so quite the... Maybe a long-winded answer to that, but that's a little bit of my story of what's brought me here in Sigma Nu.
0:10:21.8 Adam Girtz: Oh, yeah. Quite the Sigma Nu story. You're clearly has, you I think, impacted your life is... Maybe an understatement.
0:10:32.1 Fred Dobry: Yeah. Well, I told... I was joking with my kids, the worst thing that ever happened in terms of their childhood is me serving as Director of Risk Reduction and now Director of Health and Safety at Sigma Nu like we've... We will never have a trampoline at our house because... I know what the... I know the concept of liability now and the impact that claims and damages and injuries can have on ones homeowner's insurance policy premium, and thus, I'm not okay with that risk, assuming that risk voluntarily. And so, yeah, those are things, [chuckle] these are... This is language that I was not used to before becoming Director of Risk Reduction and managing our insurance program.
[chuckle]
0:11:12.5 Christopher Brenton: Well, it's funny that you say that, so I actually... I was about to say, I was like, I think we should probably just edit out the last minute of Fred speaking, because I thought the section on why you joined the Fraternity was great, and we're going to have a plug in just a second, and then you start going into like, "Oh, the consequences of all of this new knowledge that you now know. [chuckle]
0:11:35.9 Christopher Brenton: And so hopefully for our listeners, we're not discouraging you from what I'm about to say, but it's certainly great to hear Fred you talk about what attracted you to staff because and a shameless plug here so it for timing-wise, when this episode is going to drop, we actually have a staff hiring date coming up, and so if you're a listener who is a collegiate member or a recent graduate, or you're an alumnus and you are aware of a young member of the organization who would be a good fit for our staff team.
0:12:07.4 Christopher Brenton: We are constantly looking for men who will come and join our team and make a really great impact on the Legion of Honor, certainly all levels of a commitment. We'll take them. And so if you're interested in the two-year commitment of serving as leadership consultant or you find yourself susceptible to longer-term commitments, like Fred does, we'll still take you as well, actually probably even more so, but applications are going to be due by March 1st, you can find all of that information at sigmanu.org/employment. So strongly encourage anyone who's listening to this, regardless of whether you're listening to it today when the episode drops or 10 years into the future, most likely we're going to be stuck to the same application deadlines, which are March 1st in the spring term, in October 15th in the fall. But that aside, getting back to Fred, your point.
0:13:05.9 Christopher Brenton: So Fred, can I talk a little bit about what do you do as the Director of Health and Safety? So you've changed. I think a lot of people are probably familiar with the leadership consultants and the work that they do, risk reduction. Unfortunately, if you had an experience with the Director of Risk Reduction in any capacity, whether it was Fred or a different staff member you probably are very acutely aware of what they do because you experience that maybe a membership review or an investigation. Hopefully it was a positive outcome. You know, our goal is always kind of a restorative process of making our chapters better. And so we feel really strongly that that experience is intended to be educational. And we really feel strongly about the dedication of our staff to do good work and to help advance our chapters, but health and safety is a little bit more of an enigma because you don't necessarily interface with chapters as much in your current capacity, as some of our other staff who, you know, maybe are the risk reduction department or leadership consultants. So people may not be as familiar with the work that you do as the Director of Health and Safety.
0:14:08.9 Fred Dobry: Yeah. So I mean in other words, what exactly do you do here? It's a fair question. It's a tricky one, right? It's like when you're, we talk about this often staff team, you know, traveling on a plane and the person sitting next to you ask you like, so what do you do? And then you explain, "Well, I work at a fraternity." Well that is this whole thing that you have to kind of walk them through and understand what that means. And then if you go on to the next step particularly with my role as I'm the Director of Health and Safety for our fraternity headquarters that also reveals some of their perceptions and stereotypes about what being a part of fraternity is. As well as usually a lot of follow up questions and so I'm used to answering those questions. I would say the simplest way to explain it is that when I was in the Director of Risk Reduction role in many respects, what I would compare that to is a firefighter. That you've got a call there's symptoms of a fire at a house or commercial place of business and you and your team are going to go in and investigate and determine if there is a fire. And if there is one you're going to do your best to work, to put it out as quickly as possible and work to restore that property.
0:15:22.0 Fred Dobry: That's in many ways what our risk reduction team does. They respond to the allegations of violations of fraternity policy. They investigate those allegations, and if any policy violations are found they work with the chapter and other stakeholders to figure out a plan of how to help improve the chapter and make sure it's in a great place moving forward. From that firefighter role, transitioning to the Director of Health and Safety role is in many ways comparing that, I would compare that role to the role of fire marshal. So my job in many respects is to prevent the fire from happening in the first place. And really it's not me preventing it. It's me putting out resources and tools for our undergraduate members to be equipped with the skills and knowledge necessary to hopefully prevent those fires or quickly address those if they should come up.
0:16:11.9 Fred Dobry: And so I oversee a lot of our prevention strategies, so the development of what we now do in mental health education, bystander education, alcohol misuse prevention, hazing prevention, sexual misconduct education and drug abuse and all sorts of other, you know, health and safety topics that are important to college students. And certainly important to really society in general are kind of within my overall umbrella. I also oversee our insurance program. And so the administration of that program, as well as any claims, questions or litigation regarding the insurance coverages available to our members and our recognized kind of Sigma Nu entities. So that's chapters, there's alumni chapters, alumni advisory boards, house corporations, our volunteers, our officers, members, so on, so forth. I handle that and then also kind of as a, just hey, maybe Fred has some bandwidth, so let's give them this role piece of my job is meeting planning. And so all of our national conclaves, our College of Chapters, Grand Chapter somewhat of a small role with our Sigma Nu Institutes and then our board meetings, I serve as our primary meeting planner for those. So just helping organize our team to execute on the expectations for those meetings.
0:17:31.4 Christopher Brenton: Nice, nice. So as you just described, kind of some of the work that you do is in harm reduction prevention work, and that's really kind of the theme of this particular episode. As this episode drops, we are going to be right in the beginning of one of our kind of health and safety campaigns that we run on an annual basis. Typically, there's two major campaigns that the Fraternity runs throughout the year. So you have kind of our anti-hazing work that we do in the fall and then we have our safe spring break campaign that we do in the spring. And then there's a smattering of different topics that we try to address throughout the year. But those typically are the two big social media driven campaigns that you're going to see online from the national organization.
0:18:19.8 Christopher Brenton: And so for our listeners, whether you're a collegiate member or you're an alumnus you're likely either seeing right now, or if this is in the future, you have seen in the past or maybe where you're about to see depending on again, where you listen to this you are getting exposed to messaging from the organization about this #safespringbreak and the Fraternity kind of advising you or giving you tips on how to be safe during your spring break event. Obviously this is directed mostly towards our collegiate members. But certainly we want to engage alumni and volunteers in this process as well.
0:19:02.6 Christopher Brenton: But we just wanted to provide listers with a little bit of a behind the scenes or an explanation of, "What is this campaign? What is it connected to, why do we engage in this work?" So that way you're more informed about this effort and can potentially participate, whether you're a volunteer, a collegiate member bringing these resources to your chapter, an alumnus who is just aiming to understand what does the Fraternity do and how do we engage with our collegiate members. And so we're happy to have Fred on to talk about that a little bit more. One thing I do want to do just before we go into the #safespringbreak campaign itself is to talk about an important element of the campaign, which is our partnership with.
0:19:46.4 Christopher Brenton: With Alpha Chi Omega, Pi Kappa Phi and Zeta Tau Alpha, together these four groups, including Sigma Nu make up the Harm Reduction Alliance which is a health and safety prevention or harm prevention organization or prevention effort. And I'll let Fred use kind of the correct language to describe that. But Fred, if you could kind of talk a little bit more about the origin of the Harm Reduction Alliance, what it does, and then we'll kind of lead from that into our larger conversation about the #SafeSpringBreak Campaign.
0:20:19.5 Fred Dobry: Yeah, absolutely. So Harm Reduction Alliance... I'm also... I argue vehemently that I'm not the most creative person of our staff team, and maybe that title is a symptom or emblematic of that. But Harm Reduction Alliance is a loose term that we use for describing this coalition that has been formed over the last really it's now six or seven years, between some groups that really have a kind of... Their like-mindedness related to how we approach prevention and education with our student members, primarily. It really started as a partnership between Pi Kappa Phi Fraternity and Zeta Tau Alpha Sorority and Alpha Chi Omega Sorority. And when I saw with some of the work that they were doing, I really wanted Sigma Nu to be a part of it. I knew our organization, the way we approached prevention aligned very well with how they do it as well.
0:21:13.3 Fred Dobry: And so I kept bugging in particular, Lori Hart and Kyle Pendleton, who both are long-time employees of Pi Kappa Phi and Zeta Tau Alpha, about, "Hey, is there a way Sigma Nu can have a seat at this table, I think there are some things we could bring that add value to the partnership. And I just really love the things that you guys are doing." And so after a lot of bugging them, I think they eventually opened me up to the idea, and thankfully eventually invited us to become a part of the group which is really just this informal coalition. And through that, we just try to work together to identify ways in which we could use our collective resources to help provide some additional tools for our members to use to educate themselves and their fellow members about important health and safety topics.
0:22:02.2 Fred Dobry: And so as you point out, Christopher, primarily those efforts usually result in a series of educational posters being produced and distributed each semester, each year with accompanying discussion guides, and real idea being just a quick 5-15-minute discussion about the topic that is addressed in the poster. Typically, September is about hazing prevention, October is usually about alcohol misuse prevention, January can be a variety of topics but typically it's associated somewhat with kind of the idea of resetting for the new year. So for this year, we did a poster on the connection between sleep and overall health, physical and mental wellness and the importance of sleep connected to that. And so the idea hey, you're starting the year, you're kind of resetting your norms and what your goals are for the year, make sure to make sleep a part of that because that could be really important, even though there's some things in our society that say, "No, you don't need sleep, just keep grinding."
0:23:00.3 Fred Dobry: But we would argue otherwise. And then we do do an annual #SafeSpringBreak campaign. The social media campaign that I know we're going to talk about, but that's a part of our effort as well. And then usually cap the year in April with one final poster. And then from time to time, other opportunities to partner will come up. We did some work with Generation RX to group out of the College of Pharmacology at the Ohio State University to put together some prescription drug, abuse educational resources, brought on a couple of additional partners with Kappa Kappa Gamma and Pi Kappa Alpha to do some work through that partnership. And so we'll do those kind of one-off projects as those opportunities arise as well. But we'll say before we get into, #SafeSpringBreaks, I was really interested to ask you guys this question because obviously it's been keeping me up at night, but what is your number one spot to go on spring break at?
0:23:53.8 Christopher: Oh, a reversal. We're getting asked... We're getting asked the questions, Adam.
0:24:00.1 Fred Dobry: Just try... Let's try to keep you guys on your toes.
0:24:02.8 Adam Girtz: Well, I went a couple of times to South Padre Island, which was a lot of fun. A friend of mine had connections to people down there. And so we would go down there, that was always fun. Did that twice, and then one time went to a cabin in Colorado to do some snowboarding, which was also a lot of fun, so those would be my spots. Although both of those actually surprisingly don't forget your sunscreen. Worst sunburn I've ever gotten was in Colorado, actually, snowshoeing up the mountain. Who would have thought that that's where you get it. But yeah.
0:24:47.0 Fred Dobry: Hey, great answer with an embedded Safe Spring Break tip. Wow, two birds with one stone, outstanding.
0:24:54.6 Christopher Brenton: I've already started laughing in anticipation of sharing this answer. For anyone who knows me on staff, and this is not something I ever planned about myself, it just has happened. I have moved quite a bit. My wife and I have moved seven times in 3 1/2 years since we got married back in 2018. And unfortunately, [laughter] to answer this question, Fred, you should not be surprised to hear that at least two of my four spring break opportunities were spent moving, it's just my parents. So that is where I got... [laughter] I've probably got that from, but my most memorable spring break trip was actually my senior year of college. I had the chance to go to... Do an alternative service break trip and went to the Dominican Republic to do affordable housing projects in the country. And that was an incredible experience of just getting to be there. We also, in addition to some of the service work, we got to travel around the country and see different parts of the country.
0:26:03.8 Christopher Brenton: I just... I thought that was a really cool opportunity just to go out of the country and get to experience different culture also while doing the service aspects of that trip. But also that one... [laughter] Very important to bring sunscreen as well.
0:26:19.6 Fred Dobry: And it should be noted for our listening audience that each of the at least the last three locations that Christopher and his wife have moved to have been their forever home. Shortly thereafter, moving again, from that forever home. [laughter]
0:26:36.4 Christopher Brenton: Yeah. [laughter] It's just been a wild and crazy last three years for both circumstances outside of everyone's control and certainly circumstances that were within our control. But I think were better for the moves. [chuckle]
0:26:57.1 Fred Dobry: It's been great from watching you guys move from a distance. [laughter]
0:27:02.3 Christopher Brenton: I'm really hoping that our current location is in fact a permanent location, or at least a permanent city. I would like to be in one place for more than six months.
0:27:10.4 Fred Dobry: I'm sure Lex the puppy would very much appreciate that as well.
0:27:13.9 Christopher Brenton: Yes. [laughter] But yeah. Fred, what about yourself?
0:27:19.5 Fred Dobry: So I only did one kind of traditional spring break trip. But in classic Midwest fashion. It was to Boyne Mountain in Upper Michigan, which is this old Dutch replica skiing community that's been around for decades, and actually had a great time with the chapter brother, and Kelli, and his girlfriend. And it was awesome, little trip to a Michigan ski resort and did that for a week.
0:27:48.7 Christopher Brenton: Are you a skier or are you a snowboarder?
0:27:51.1 Fred Dobry: I am a skier. I tried snowboarding. The first time I ever went was when I was in college, and I was like, "No. I'm too cool. I'm a millennial, I'm going to snowboard." And I went down three or four times, and the wrecks were just so brutal because the board doesn't disconnect. And so you're just going carouseling down like a snowball down the mountain, and it just was killer. And so I quickly gave up on that and said, "Well, I'll give skiing a little bit... A few tries and I'm just going to go sit by the fire near the lodge." And I actually went down skiing, and figured out the pizza and the wrecks weren't nearly as bad since the skis disconnected pretty quickly and was able to stop myself and so I kind of got into that. I'm not going down any black diamond trails by any means any time soon, but I can hold my own on a blue every now and again. Mostly green is the preferred trail for me.
0:28:47.1 Christopher Brenton: I'm sorry we couldn't find you a... In a... Compadre in snowboarding. I'm also a skier.
0:28:54.4 Adam Girtz: That's okay. I'm too fast for everyone, anyway. Nobody can keep up with me. So I don't need partners.
0:29:00.8 Fred Dobry: I saw some Olympic trainees underway of recent video. I think I saw you share... Of you kissing the rail.
0:29:07.7 Adam Girtz: Mm-hmm. Yes. Yeah, still got it. All my laps through the Train Park. Kimball, Minnesota. Powder Ridge. Used to hurry up and try to finish my homework so I could go out there every night. So that was always really fun.
0:29:26.5 Christopher Brenton: Nice. Well, Fred, thank you for the explanation of the Harm Reduction Alliance. I think it's really helpful just to kind of have that as foundational knowledge. But now to dive into the Safe Spring Break campaign. So you have already kind of hinted a little bit in reference to some of the safe spring break tips that Adam provided in his story. But for those who are not familiar with, say, spring break or haven't seen #safespringbreak online on the various social media platforms, what is the intended goal of the campaign? And for this particular year, are there any outcomes that you're looking for, either the Harm Reduction Alliance to achieve, the Fraternity individually to achieve, or is this just kind of more in line with how the organization expresses its values and what it cares about?
0:30:20.8 Fred Dobry: Yeah, so we're excited about this year's campaign. I think this is our fifth, maybe, or sixth year doing this campaign. And it kind of goes back to somewhat of a thing we've talked about in our discussion today of just providing some additional tools. And these are just really practical, quick-hitting tips on how to ensure your spring break is not only fun as it should be, but also safe and that you were able to come back to college. Hopefully back to the campus without any regrets or any real negative consequences from your trip. And so things as simple as, "Don't forget to wear your sunscreen," well that's when you're on a beach in South Padre Island, or skiing in Colorado, or snowboarding in Colorado. Making sure you don't forget to wear your sunscreen is important. Make sure, "Hey, when you're going out, stay with your friends. Stay with people you know. If you're going to a beach, go to a beach that's got a lifeguard." These things are just really practical and intended to just be really easy to apply.
0:31:24.6 Fred Dobry: Things as well as, "Hey, while you're out having fun with your friends and having this hopefully epic trip, make sure you're also checking in every now and again with your parents or guardian to make sure they know everything's still going well, and you still have access to money to pay for your food and for your room, and that everything is still good with you and your friends." That's really important, but sometimes can be overlooked when you're in the midst of it. So the idea is again, to provide some practical tools for members to be able to use, but also to solicit ideas and tips from our members. And so there'll be polls and interactive questions posed to get members to write their own tips, especially for our veterans out there that's going on their third or fourth spring break. Any lessons learned from your prior spring breaks, that would be helpful for younger members to know.
0:32:11.9 Fred Dobry: And that includes, of course, alumni. So some of our veterans out there were able to go on three or four spring break trips during college that may have some tips, whether it be going on a cruise, going to a beach, going on to skiing or snowboarding, or any other variety of different spring break options that are out there. All those things can be just really helpful for people to have a bit of a game plan going into the week. I had to ensure mostly just to make sure that it's not only a blast, but also that's a safe experience, and one, they can come back with hopefully nothing but positive memories.
0:32:49.3 Adam Girtz: Yeah, so you kind of referenced for collegiate members or alumni to share their stories of ways that made their spring break experiences safer, more enjoyable outside of that specific example, which I think is probably largely what we're going to see most of our members do in participation in this campaign, but are there any other ways that alumni or collegiate members could participate in this year's campaign?
0:33:17.7 Fred Dobry: So I'm posting with the hashtag, safe spring break (#safespringbreak), certainly would be a great way to do that, so not only responding to the questions that are posed by our accounts, but also chiming in with their own contributions by just putting out safe spring break tips posts on their very social media platforms as well, would be great. Following the partner groups, so it's Alpha Chi Omega, Pi Kappa Phi, Zeta Tau Alpha, and of course Sigma Nu is a great starting point to find those social media channels and seeing the posts that we're making, and then you're having meet with the chapter, especially for our advisors out there and our chapter officers you know that last chapter meet before everyone departs for spring break, maybe pull up the thread and see some of the things have been posted on safe spring break and highlight some things that may be applicable to your group, you know where most of your members maybe going for spring break, there's probably some tips within there that might be helpful as helpful reminders or even a one-page resource that you could type up real quick and share with the guys before they depart on their trip.
0:34:21.6 Fred Dobry: So those are just a few different ways, contribute to the conversation as well as just making sure you're sharing with our members that there's these resources that's out there, it's a living resource being contributed to daily during the campaign, and if they aren't monitoring or following it already, hopefully they will.
0:34:38.6 Christopher Brenton: Yeah, and I would add too, I mean I think in some cases, this can feel maybe a little... I was going to say weird but not weird, but different than what the fraternity is normally engaging with in terms of prevention messaging or just harm reduction messaging, in that we're not really talking about chapter activities necessarily, in this... For this particular campaign, so it's not the entire chapter going on spring break together, although there's a possibility that it could be happening, but in many cases, this is... These are individuals or maybe smaller groups that are going to be going on vacation together, and so I would just really appeal to the fraternal or the brotherhood aspect of the work that we do at the collegiate chapter level, which is making sure that our men are cared for.
0:35:34.8 Christopher Brenton: And so we all kind of had our period of feeling like we're supermen, that no matter what happens, that harm or risk, it just kind of deflects off of us, but I think we show up for our brothers when we facilitate conversations that are maybe a little bit more uncomfortable or awkward, but are important, and I definitely think this is one where facilitating a conversation at your chapter meeting about these resources that are available, or these tips that are available, checking in with guys, "Hey, before you depart, does everybody have a game plan?" Here are just... Here are references or resources for just a checklist or just something that you can make sure that you're going through a set of steps to ensure that you're going to have the best time possible, but stay safe throughout your entire trip because we want you to come back to us, you know the chapter, and be able to tell the stories of how awesome your trip was but to be safe in doing so... Or to having that experience.
0:36:42.2 Christopher Brenton: So I would also throw that out there too, because I think that some people might disregard this campaign as well, I don't have to be concerned about what my brothers are doing because I'm not going to be there with them, but I think that that's a really poor way to look at our obligation to our brothers is to make sure that we're caring for them and that they have all the skills and resources they need to be cared for, even when we are not around them.
0:37:06.8 Fred Dobry: Well, yeah, and it's one of those things of like don't... You don't know what you don't... You don't know what you don't know. So while you maybe you're a freshman at college and already had the benefit of being on spring break three or four times in high school with your family, someone as a freshman or sophomore or even junior or senior, maybe going on spring break like this, like going to a beach with friends for the first time. And so something like, oh yeah, don't forget to pack sunscreen, which seems really obvious, but it's something that could easily be overlooked or, "Hey, have some petty cash on hand, just in case you lose your card, or make sure you have your license or some other photo identification and maybe even a back-up, although, especially if you're going out of the country," those kind of things that for those are veterans or we're able to go with their family. They may think of, Oh, that's of course, common sense, but really it may not be for someone that's specially inexperienced.
0:38:05.6 Adam Girtz: Yeah. It's neat because it kind of gets at... This is a practical example of the core of what fraternity is and should be, right? That's at both times a support system, while you're also being you're passing on of essential knowledge from one generation of young men to the next, it's a great way for our chapters to you exercise looking out for each other and helping teach each other, and that's within their own chapter, but now that we're using social media for this campaign as well, between chapters, between fraternities, between Greek organizations in general.
0:38:52.0 Christopher Brenton: Yeah, absolutely. So for again, our listeners, when this episode drops, we are going to be in our first week of the safe spring break campaign, so you're probably seeing messaging kind of in alignment with the announcement of this podcast episode having dropped, but... Do know that this is not the last week to participate, Safe Spring Break campaign runs through, I believe mid-March, is that correct, Fred?
0:39:21.9 Fred Dobry: Yep, that's right. I think it launches February 21st, and then runs through the second week of March.
0:39:29.5 Christopher Brenton: Perfect, so we are going to have, I think, roughly three weeks to participate in this campaign, so we encourage everyone to engage with this on social media, primarily be on Facebook and Instagram, but you can also find us on Twitter, and then I believe there are going to be some efforts as well to engage over TikTok also, so be on the lookout for that type of, or those types of posts coming out also. But Fred, any final thoughts about the Safe Spring Break campaign or any other plugs for the work that the Harm Reduction Alliance has coming up?
0:40:07.3 Fred Dobry: Well, it's cliche, but I'm going to do it. Brothers, have a safe spring break please, have a good time. Represent the brotherhood well, and I look forward to seeing the big group send me new flag photos that'll be, I'm sure sprinkling all over social media, again, just making sure that when we take those photos we are representing the Fraternity in the right way, not to get to health and safety oriented there, but very important, and second, our last planned at least, resource through the Harm Reduction Alliance that we are releasing this semester and this academic year, is actually another educational poster expected to drop in early April with a discussion guide that will actually be on academic-related consequences of using cannabis, and so actually our first, I think poster on cannabis usage. So I'm excited to get that out there, and especially as we approach final exams with a lot of our members now living in states that have legalized marijuana use, there's some considerations that I think our guys should be taking under consideration whether or not to use cannabis and be thoughtful of what kind of consequence can arise from cannabis usage.
0:41:20.9 Fred Dobry: And also, of course, members need to keep in mind that probably their host institution prohibits them from using cannabis, even though it may be legalized in their state, because those host institutions are still largely funded through federal dollars, and of course, the Federal government of the United States still prohibits marijuana use, so there will be some interesting conversation, I'm sure that are going to come out of that poster, but that's our last resource plan for this year, and then we'll be meeting as a partnership again, this summer, to come up with a plan for the next academic year, so looking forward to it.
0:41:55.1 Christopher Brenton: Yeah, one other note, if you are on spring break and you happen to have taken a Sigma Nu flag with you or you're gathered with a bunch of brothers, don't hesitate to send photos, of course appropriate photos to news@sigmanu.org, I'm always looking for great ways of celebrating our brotherhood. No matter where you gather. So definitely take advantage of that opportunity. Before we wrap things up, and I'll definitely kick it over to Adam to do that, but Fred, we have you, you are a special guest, we know that you don't just do the safe Spring Break campaign or/and work with the Harm Reduction Alliance, but any other resources, materials you want to plug that are ever green to your work and making our chapters better.
0:42:43.2 Fred Dobry: Guys, I want to make sure you're aware of, if you're not already, we have a growing library of mental health resources, this is something our guys have constantly over the last six, seven years, argued that, hey, we need more support from the Fraternity in this area. Yes, our campus has a lot, but they also are overwhelmed, taking on average six weeks to get an appointment with a campus counselor, and our guys just need support, they don't know how to talk to their brothers about mental health, they don't know how to help a friend that may be dealing with some mental health distress, not navigating it in a productive way, and demanding some additional support from the fraternity in that regard, and so we have dedicated those resources in response to that request to make sure to develop that library of support and those resources for our members to use. And so, just about six weeks ago, I was sitting in the basement of Hotel Roanoke at College of Chapters with about 30 commanders from all across the country, talking about how can we lead our brotherhood better in providing mental health education and support.
0:43:49.2 Fred Dobry: And that says where we've come, I had that same conversation about five years ago, and we had maybe 11 commanders in that room, and so our guys are increasing in their desire to want to be better and supporting our brothers, and being able to have these conversations with them, and so, I want to make sure our guys and our officers and our volunteers are aware of what's available now through the Fraternity, and so we've got Behind Happy Faces, that's probably our marquee program regarding mental health education. There's two aspects to that program, there's the collegiate member program, that takes the shape of the traditional LEAD experience, so it's an in-person facilitated workshop-type experience, there's five primary modules providing the basic Mental Health 101 style education, and then there's four additional add-on modules, so things like handling stress, how to stop procrastinating, the differences between chronic stress and acute stress, things that may be better or more specific to specific issues that you know your chapter or your members are struggling with.
0:44:55.0 Fred Dobry: And then the additional piece of the Behind Happy Faces program is the advisor resource series, that's an online-based quick 5 to 10 minute, 5 to 15-minute online sessions for our collegiate officers and volunteers, and so there's five modules to that, and it's really catered towards specific mental health education, catered towards those volunteers and officers and the unique mental...
0:45:19.3 Fred Dobry: Distress and also stress that could be associated with their roles as well as the roles they have and in shepherding and leading the chapter members. We have also, I just talked on the chapter actually earlier this week, that's trying to provide better education for their members and how to have a good conversation with brothers, that may be struggling with some mental health concerns. And so we have a tool that we call the Mental Health V-A-R tool, which stands for validate, appreciate and refer, and it's just simply a framework for how we can approach having a mental health-oriented discussion with a friend, with a brother, with a non-member with a family member, whoever it may be, the idea that you would validate their issues or their concerns, and it's okay to feel what they're feeling, appreciate the situation, appreciate why they have those concerns and the situation or issues that may have led to those concerns.
0:46:13.8 Fred Dobry: And then realize where your limitations are and what support and help you can provide them and when necessarily refer them to additional expertise in terms of counseling or other resources that may be helpful for their particular situation, and so that's also available on our website it's the tool that's got a video as well as a discussion guide that can help educate members and understanding or at least considering a framework for how to approach conversations around mental health, and then we also have a quick check-in prompts, discussion guide oriented for chapter, either at chapter meeting or within subsets of the chapter, like your candidates or your seniors, just to do a quick check in, 15-minute discussion about, Hey, how are you feeling? Where are you at? What things are causing problems right now, what things are going really well what things have you found working really well for you in terms of having a positive mindset or overcoming anxiety or stress, and what things maybe are you struggling with and talking through that in an informal casual discussion, and so there's some prompts to help facilitate that discussion as well, so mental health is a huge priority for the Fraternity has been for the last several years.
0:47:27.2 Fred Dobry: We're going to continue to invest in that area. I just want to make sure is we have so many tools, so many amazing tools on our website and through all the various platforms through which we deliver education and communication and generate awareness about their existence, that within all that we now lose sight of what's available through the fraternity on the mental health front, as I think we're doing a lot of really good work in that area, and of course, I want to continue to hear feedback from our members if there's other opportunities or areas that we need to be doing more in or need to be quite frankly doing better at... We want to hear that feedback, and so make sure to pass that along because of our development of mental health and the work that we've done in that area is largely in response to what our members have said that they wanted and that feedback that came from our members.
0:48:16.1 Fred Dobry: I guess a couple of other things is DignityU that's a program we launched a couple of years ago, really about treating people with inherent respect that they should be to deserve as fellow human beings, and I think that's such an important topic. Around a lot of things that are going on in society and on college campuses where I think about things that we struggle with and all fraternities and much of society struggles with, but things like hazing things like being disrespectful towards others, being abusive in relationships, so much of that can be effectively addressed in some way, if we could embrace the concept of dignity and treating each other with mutual respect, and so we have a workshop program built around this DignityU Program that facilitates some education discussion on that important topic, and there's a lot more information about that on our website as well.
0:49:07.5 Fred Dobry: And then I'll do my last shameless plug, because we are in spring and spring always includes many deadlines, but there's a very important deadline in Health and Safety, which is May 1st, and that deadline is for 90% of your members to have completed CommunityEdu at some point in their collegiate career. The CommunityEdu was formerly known as GreekLifeEdu. So if you're a member that has completed. GreekLifeEdu, then good. They don't need a complete CommunityEdu, but you'll get a report early, your chapter will get a report in early April, detailing where your chapter is and how many members have completed either CommunityEdu or GreekLifeEdu, as long as you get to 90% completion by May 1st. You avoid the potential $25 per member financial surcharges, so that deadline May 1st, I'll be communicating to each chapter quite extensively in the month of April about that. So hopefully, there will be no surprises, but with our platform here this afternoon, I wanted to make sure to give that a plug as well.
0:50:06.1 Adam Girtz: Awesome. Fred, as you were talking about some of those resources, it just really strikes me like how many awesome ways there are to show your brothers how much you care about them, right, like your safe spring break and you helping your brothers, you plan that, their safe spring break and then execute their safe spring break, but also then these mental health resources, like you said, you this is something that you as the general fraternity and then our partnerships, you we've responded to the calls from our members that, Hey, this is something that we're interested in, that we want to be able to take advantage of from the fraternity, and that comes from this desire that we have to watch out for each other and to support each other, so... Yeah, just so many awesome ways for our brothers to do that and show that for each other, it's pretty neat to hear about... Fred, thank you so much for being here. On behalf of our listeners we thank you for spending some time with us today. And on behalf of me and Christopher, it's been a pleasure. Any final thoughts? Your first... Well, actually not the first time on The Gavel Podcast, the secret first episode, the pilot episode that was never aired that we used, actually did feature Fred Dobry, but that's a vault. When we launch a Patreon, that'll be our first bonus episode is the Vaulted Fred Dobry/Scott Smith episode.
0:51:42.7 Fred Dobry: I forgot, I forgot about that pilot episode yes that Scott and I did that was... I can only imagine the audio quality of that podcast, but yeah, no, it's truly always a great time to have a little round table discussion with my co-workers, friends and brothers one ADG and DCB, which probably most people on this podcast listening to this right now have no idea what that means. That's a initials, which many in our staff, we refer to each other as our initials as we use for planning documents for our events, a lot easier to put one's initials than it is their full name, so we oftentimes, we know each other's initials, just a little known little facts. So you've made your way to the end of this podcast, you've got that little kernel of inside behind the curtain staff wisdom from being with us here at the end, but... No, it was great, guys, I appreciate you selecting this topic and giving me an opportunity here to talk about some of the work we're doing in health and safety.
0:52:38.6 Christopher Brenton: Absolutely.
0:52:38.9 Adam Girtz: Awesome, well, as always, guys, if you... As Christopher said up top, if you're looking to hear more from the fraternity or if you're looking to reach out and communicate with your fraternity, you can always check out our website, sigmanu.org, and we're on all major social media platforms and Christopher, did I hear that right did you reference that we're making TikToks now.
0:53:00.4 Christopher Brenton: Shhhhh. Don't encourage it. [laughter]
0:53:03.4 Adam Girtz: Alright, well, tune in next month when me and Christopher do the woah. We hit the woah. All the kids do for TikTok dances, I'm seeing from your blank faces that that went over your head, and I'm assuming that's an old reference too that is probably very outdated. So I'm just going to stop. Now, thank you for listening to The Gavel podcast, and we look forward to speaking to you again soon. Bye everyone.
0:53:33.2 Fred Dobry: Take care.
0:53:41.8 Christopher Brenton: Bye guys.
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