Brown and White Vol. 127 no. 16

              The Brown and White
Vol. 127 No. 16
Friday, October 31, 2014
‘All the Lehigh News First’
Lehigh University’s Office of Fraternity and Sorority Affairs has implemented TIPS Training for off-campus, Greek-affiliated students to provide education regarding potential alcohol-re­lated problems and develop an understanding of the school’s alcohol policies.
According to the TIPS training website, the training is “the glob­al leader in education and train­ing for the responsible service, sale, and consumption of alcohol. Proven effective by third-party studies, TIPS is a skills-based training program that is designed to prevent intoxication, underage drinking and drunk driving.”
Tim Wilkinson, senior assistant dean of students and director of Fraternity and Sorority Affairs, played a large role in bringing the training to Lehigh.
“I’m ultimately the one who said, ‘let’s do this,’” Wilkinson said. “TIPS is one of the most prominent, nationally known alco­hol education programs, which is why we’re using it.”
Wilkinson highlighted the three points that the training intends to touch upon: helping students better understand the physiolo­gy behind alcohol, social liability and bystander intervention.
“We know fraternities and sororities historically (have) incorporated alcohol as a part of the experience, and we want stu­dents to understand the health and safety involved and want them to run their events better,” said Jennifer Tedeschi, assis­tant director of Fraternity and Sorority Affairs and TIPS trainer,
With the acceptance of early decision applicants increasing nationally, prospective students are under more pressure to make their decisions as soon as possi­ble — particularly when a school like Lehigh selected 46 percent of its freshman class from the early application pool.
Lehigh receives approximately 890 to 1100 early decision I and early decision II applications each year on Nov. 15.
“In terms of total applications, we see a very steady number of early decision I and early decision II applications,...which has been steady over the past decade,” said Bruce Bunnick, director of admis­sions at Lehigh.
When deciding whether to apply early decision, students must take into account what it means to send a school an early decision applica­tion. Such applications are binding if the university or college to which a student applies decides to accept their application.
If a student wants to show Lehigh that he or she is serious about enrolling, applying early “sends a fairly powerful message that the student has settled after conduct­ing a thorough and exhaustive search of an institution,” Bunnick said. “They have made a profound statement that (Lehigh is their) No. 1 school.”
Applying early decision means that students are allowed to choose only one out of thousands of schools. With the fall dead­line for early decision applications, however, students often do not have enough time to visit all of the INSIDE | Lehigh faces George­town on Saturday as both teams seek their first conference win.
See Page 12
Early decision offers admission advantage
in an email.
Tedeschi further elaborated on Wilkinson’s three main goals of the training. She said the goals of the training are “to ensure the health and safety of our stu­dents, to better the community by understanding the liability of hosting an event and to educate students on the effects of alcohol and how to effectively and safely intervene in risky situations.”
The training groups have been as small as 15 and cap at about 35, which allows for interactivity during the training. Wilkinson said the training involves a lot of students discussing and debating scenarios with one another, which differs from the online nature of AlcoholEdu, an alcohol education program first-year students are
TIPS training reinforces alcohol education
By PHIL BAUS
B&W Staff
See TIPS Page 3
By SAMANTHA TOMASZEWSKI
Community Engagement Manager
Applying early decision to Lehigh proves popular — 46 percent of the class of 2018 were early
applicants.
See EARLY Page 4
Inside Sports
Students question decision behind target audience
Made with Canva/Samantha Tomaszewski