In preparation for the new semester, more than 60 sorority and fraternity members attended a sober monitor training, reiterating how to facilitate safe social events, Thursday evening in the Memorial Student Center.

The sober monitor trainings were mandatory for all Greek life members and were offered Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday to teach members how to manage any unforeseen issues.

Safety and ensuring events remain safe is a number one priority in Greek life, and “education and prevention prevents these things from happening,” Nick Wright, Director of Fraternity and Sorority Life, said Thursday.

According to Wright, the sober monitor trainings were structured to inform sober monitors what their jobs and responsibilities are during social events and how to hold people accountable for their actions.

Sober monitors ensure an event remains safe by watching the event, helping remove people if a crowd becomes too large and helping people get home safely.

In addition, sober monitors are required at every social event and must not consume any alcohol before, during or immediately following the event.

“The reason we hosted this in this fashion in different chapters is to talk about what are the issues at socials, how do we intervene, and before we event start to think about how to intervene, how do we prevent them from happening,” Wright said.

“Sober monitoring is not babysitting,” Wright said during the training. If any uncontrollable issues arise, it is not the sober monitor’s responsibility to resolve the issue, he said.

Members were then instructed to call proper authorities if an issue becomes concerning, because, Wright said, “It is better to be safe than sorry.”

Safety is “extremely important, because you don’t want your brother or sister to ever get hurt,” Kaitlyn Pulliam, member of the sorority Alpha Xi Delta, said Thursday.

Pulliam, who has been a sober monitor in the past, said she has not had to intervene in issues at social events.

“I think every chapter needs to be trained about what does a sober monitor look like,” Wright said. “I don’t want us to memorialize a member.”

Wright hopes the trainings will be conducted every semester, “but not everyone do it over again. So, of course, we get a slew of new people in the fall time. Those new members will have to go through a sober monitor training,” he said.

As the training drew to a close, Wright asked the members if they learned anything new, and multiple attendants responded, “Yes.”

Paige Leonard can be contacted at [email protected].