“Navigating Greek Life: Promoting Wellness and Safety in College Fraternities and Sororities”
[00:00:01] Jake White: Hello, everyone. And welcome to another podcast episode of “Party Talk” where we empower leaders in youth drug prevention. I’m Jake White, your host. And today I got to talk with Donnie Otto Bantle, the Assistant Director of Fraternity and Sorority life at Purdue University. I love this conversation because it highlights the different perspectives within our field. And honestly, one right here in a population that’s really high risk, Greek life in colleges and universities. And not only that but at one of the prestigious universities in our country, Purdue. And I love my conversation with Donnie, because it can show the care you can give students no matter where they are, if they’re using drugs and alcohol to party and have fun, or whether that makes them uncomfortable. We talk about it all. So please enjoy this episode of “Party Talk”. Just to kind of get started, can you take me from your experience, because I know you’re working heavily in Greek life right now. So, kind of what your role looks like right now, and what the day-to-day things that you’re doing to help out with that community?
[00:01:13] Donnie Otto Bantle: For sure. So my job is a lot of different things at once, kind of goes on and needs space, different things every day. But the core of it is I like to be mine as like comprehensive wellness. A lot of the time we’re focusing on the physical, which is just making sure we’re not harming one another, and we’re providing safe spaces. So Purdue’s actually really great because we have a really strong system of accountability and event procedures, I guess you can call them. We call it Sarma. I don’t really remember the acronym. So many acronyms are there. So we make sure that there are a lot of policies and practices and building culture in the place to make all of our events, whether that’s alcohol, not safe spaces. And if they’re not following those policies, those parties, or we call them functions, are canceled or shut down. Again, then they have to go through a veggie additional process. But we have a campus safety committee for any sort of event that’s just happening, that include contracts or any sort of harm. So, bearing like a pie in the face fundraiser, making sure that you’re not using a cream that’s going to cause an allergic reaction to people. All the way to when we have a barn dance that has drinking bartender’s transportation, like all the way to the team, make sure that things are going super well, that’s kind of the main gist. But for me individually, I have also a portfolio of chapters that I work with individuals with their leadership. So any issues that they’re going through, whether that’s mental health, body image, alcohol abuse, sexual assault, whatever those things are, then we kind of catered that conversation around how can we support your members to do those sorts of things, and address it in a way that makes sense for that organization. So we do a yearly survey of all members, and they select which organization they’re in. That survey is anonymous. So it kind of goes through what kind of issues that they’re seeing within their chapter, and then the community, and then we’re able to show that to the leadership and say, “Hey, here are all the issues that they’re probably not talking about. And these are, what your actual issues are”. It’s not, “Oh, we don’t get along, because we didn’t have the right t-shirt color. Or we didn’t get to pick my birthday theme, or just like a lot of different random things that don’t really matter”. But problems that kind of come from being a campus culture because sometimes chapter presidents will come to me and be like, “Am I causing? This is our chapter like, why is this so bad?” I’m like, “Well, it’s actually not bad in comparison”. Sometimes it is. But the campus culture, especially around rape culture, that’s how it is not just for fraternities’ sororities, but it’s for the whole campus. So that gives us good leverage and opportunity like to be able to talk through those hard conversations to workshopping, programming talking to individual members, and helping them get individual resources, whether that’s on-campus resources, or referring them to hotlines or off-campus resources to help them individually. So it’s a lot of different things. What people are bringing to the table, I would say the wellness piece, because when I work with leaders as well, I like to talk about their individual in the wellness, because sometimes they’re getting the whole wrath of everything that’s out there. And it’s like, “I know they’re not doing it, but they are feeling the weight of everything”. So I try to make sure that they’re following a plan of the eight dimensions of wellness.
[00:05:29] Jake White: Wow. So that’s really cool that you can be there to kind of highlight some of the things to keep them safe to build community and healthy ways. And you were in Greek Life at UW Oshkosh, I remember that. What was it that made you want to stay in this field?
[00:05:49] Donnie Otto Bantle: Good question. I think it is the sense of community and being able to make an impact and a change. And not even necessarily outside the community perspective, but like the individual impact, it has on people. Because I tell my students all the time that we have these things called pledge class parties, where they’ll be a bunch of them that are only 18 or 19, and all get together and just drink with them. And it’s an unregistered function. And I tell them, “Well if the only outlet that you’re providing them is alcohol or no alcohol, I’d probably go the alcohol route”. I mean, I didn’t drink when I was 18, or 19. But I had opportunities to connect with others without drinking. So I’m like, “Well, you need to be planning more things”. So you can do game nights, you can do movie nights, there are so many free things, too. And you probably spend a lot less money on doing some of these things and battling alcohol. And so just the same amount of fun. So I think the personal impact it had on me, and being able to have other people share that experience that I did, obviously, in a very different way, the pretty way in Oshkosh. But being able to have them make connections and kind of learn and grow through decisions.
[00:07:21] Jake White: One of the things that I’ve been hearing, and I haven’t necessarily been seeing this, but I’ve been hearing it that students aren’t necessarily using alcohol as much. They’re using marijuana, cannabis plant products, and things like that, THC in their vaping products, and stuff like that. Are you fine? Is that part of it, or is alcohol still like the main party outlet in Greek life?
[00:07:46] Donnie Otto Bantle: It’s still, I would say, the alcohol piece. The only difference I would say is the access to marijuana would be you see more. Like, people using both. And it’s like, “I want to use one or the other or literally gonna use both tonight”. And that presents its own issues as well, here it’s not legal. So that’s a legal issue. And most of them are underage, so they couldn’t even buy it. So let’s do that. Then three, just the mixing of substances just
[00:08:22] Jake White: Not a great idea.
[00:08:23] Donnie Otto Bantle: Never really great.
“Addressing Challenges in Today’s College Community”
[00:08:24] Jake White: What do you do if students are caught, and they break the rules and their guidelines for being a part of your community? And they’re found with an illegal substance, or if they’ve broken the event rules? What happens?
[00:08:42] Donnie Otto Bantle: So there are different routes. So if it’s an official or unofficial event that could be deemed as an event by an organization, they’ll go through the organizational judicial process. If the individual report was sent to the university, and we have a name, that person is going to go through individual conduct, or Dean of Students, I don’t touch that. And then we have a really nice culture here of reporting student of concerns report. It’s not necessarily we want to get you in trouble. But whenever you’re worried about someone’s effect, someone’s drinking five times a week and shrinking. And I’ve seen a new pattern, you can write a student concern report that goes to your dean of students office, and they get to talk to the student kind of see what’s going on, and kind of triage the help and care. And we have a really great system because I feel other universities people are afraid to call 911. If someone’s too intoxicated, some people are just afraid to talk about it, because that’s just the culture of how their family grew up. It’s a good thing and a bad thing, like the fact that we get people using the systems greatly, but when we have a lot of people using the system, a lot of bad things happen.
[00:10:05] Jake White: I’m curious, just for students today and what they’re going through one of the things just from the students who may be graduated during that time of COVID, and maybe were isolated and get to go to school. Are you seeing anything come out of that, as far as your community, you said they have a survey, and they’re good about being vocal and sharing what they’re going through. What would you say students in your community are going through to have challenged these days?
[00:10:36] Donnie Otto Bantle: I think there are three main themes I’m seeing. So the first issue being I don’t know how to interact with people in a healthy manner, because I didn’t get to see that. And your social development being delayed for two years, such a huge delay, and then coming back, what is the norm? We don’t know what the norm is, because the people that didn’t know the norms are gone. So it’s a good thing and a bad thing, because you can create a new norm, but also creating new norms doesn’t necessarily mean they’re good or healthy new norms. Another one is body image. I think when you’re on zoom all the time, and just showing your face like people going out in public, we’ve seen an increase in people not being comfortable with their bodies, and Snapchat, TikTok, all the all these things have so many filters on them. Now, that just adds the body dysmorphia piece. And then the third-largest problem I’m seeing is just being able to time manage and kind of balance everything. I think I struggled with that too coming out of the pandemic. And they’re really just trying to figure it out for the first time. It’s just a lot harder on them. So not being able to meet deadlines, having a lot of anxiety about not making the deadlines, or being just kind of on edge with certain things.
[00:12:13] Jake White: I could definitely see that. Especially, I can relate to social peace as well, just being that. You remember the kid who didn’t want to drink or smoke. Well, what’s my piece? Where do I fit in an environment like college, where that’s all you do on the weekend, seemingly?
[00:12:34] Donnie Otto Bantle: And they need to make a group of friends, that’s all they want to do. Do I have to do this? Or can I make a difference? Or, how do I set that boundary?
[00:12:44] Jake White: And it’s so weird that you might have to learn how to do that for the first time, because you grew up with your friends through high school, maybe they’ve always been your best friends. Now you have to choose your friends, you have to set your boundaries. And if they’re not the right ones, you kind of have to break up with them in a way or be a little bit Stern to say, this is what I want, and what’s going to be good for me. And now all being in maybe a new environment, if you’re a freshman or a sophomore, being that first-year student. So I can imagine it being really tough. And then just with how everything’s playing out on social media to just your life kind of being public could add some extra pressure that students are seeing, or I should look like this or act like this. Because that’s what influencers are doing on TikTok, whatever the next one is in a couple of months. So I am curious. I want to ask you, because you’ve been in Greek life for a little bit, what are some of the cool alcohol education and drug education, things you’ve seen? Or maybe there are some things that you’ve done that you’re pretty proud of. How have you seen substance education play out within Greek life?
[00:14:11] Donnie Otto Bantle: So I would say, no single programs that you’re never going to learn from a single program. It’s the repetition of being able to hear people’s stories and things that have happened. We do presentations around, like, how does this literally affect my body, body chemically, and especially around gender and sex dynamics are like, women literally, if they try to drink the same, their toxication levels just going to be way higher. So literally just the basics. My favorite kind of programming around kind of that risk prevention is, I like to not even talking about anything that’s super crazy. I’m like, “What is everyday risk look like?” Do you ride a bike? What kind of risk prevention plan do you have? You’re like, “I’m riding a bike”. But since you practice wearing a helmet, you don’t just cross the street without looking both ways, like going down into the basics of what are you doing every day like you drive a car, if you don’t put a seatbelt on, that’s a choice of your risk management prevention, so kind of reframing in a way to not show risk. Reduction is not fun, but showing, either way, it’s a risk. Like, everything you do is a risk. It’s not fun to think about things like that all the time. But once you are actually able to think through things and understand, you don’t have to do that cognitive work anymore. I like to think about bystander intervention. I’ve done that training. I’ve been a trainer, gone through the training, but I still end up in situations where I never had to think through this before. And it’s not until you have talked about it or experienced it to kind of process and know what you’re going to do in the future. So I think we need a lot more of that. How do you work through things before it even happens? Because sometimes it sounds silly. It’s never going to happen, but then it does.
[00:16:26] Jake White: And you don’t think that you need a plan for everything. But in reality, if you’re practicing this pattern of thought that risk is going to happen throughout your life, no matter what your choices are, I’m going to deal with risk then you can help yourself come up with plans if something were to go wrong. And it’s so funny to hear you talk about it. You’re in the right field, Donnie. You’re talking about risk management.
[00:16:53] Donnie Otto Bantle: And you got to bring it differently. I keep talking about risk management, but sometimes I still do. It’s just so much easier when you don’t frame it as being fun soccer. Your frame is like, how am I going to take care of myself and others? How can I change the culture? If we had a culture around everyone wearing helmets when they ride bikes, I think we’d have fewer issues with bike accidents. But I feel the culture is right now. I’m going to look cool. And I want my hair to look good.
[00:17:28] Jake White: I don’t want to mess up my hair.
[00:17:32] Donnie Otto Bantle: That’s the same thing. Maybe a little bit of fun soccer. But would you rather have a good brain and a head moving forward, or have your hair look good for that day?
“Balancing Choices and Safety: Insights from Donnie Otto Bantle in Greek Life”
[00:17:42] Jake White: And do you want to live in a world where people feel comfortable, having messy hair, but being safe, that’s great? I’ll take that. So you said you’ve done some of the training for your students and for your staff. Here’s a unique question that I’ve seen for Greek life. If I go and speak to in a fraternity or anything within the Greek Life umbrella, there’s kind of a sliding scale, which is Jake, you’re the founder of party point, it’s these non-alcoholic parties. And I’m not like a preacher. So I’m not going to preach that you need to make the same decision as me. But I’ll make it known that there are 1000s of students out there, partying and having fun without getting drunk or high. So you always know that’s an option. Then there’s the other side, which is we want bystander intervention. Jake, our students are going to drink, they’re going to get wasted. We want you to help save their lives. Where do you feel on the spectrum of education within Greek life? Where would you put your comfort level, Jake, just saved my kids’ lives because they’re going to drink no matter what versus their college students, they’re figuring out their future? Is there room to influence where they want to go and how they make choices?
[00:19:14] Donnie Otto Bantle: That’s a really good question. I wouldn’t say I wouldn’t be able to put anyone at scale, I would just go right down the middle. Because it really is who you surround yourself around and the people that you want. Even just looking at my experience, as an undergrad at Oshkosh, I was weary about the whole thing because I was uncomfortable around alcohol. And the fact that my fraternity hosted party point parties, and knowing that we do more than just alcohol, made me safe. They’re still going to have problems with alcohol as long as we’re being safe and still having a good time. But just having the alternative for me helped a lot. And there are always going to be people that might never want to be swayed. And there might be people that get swayed the other way. Like they might be no alcohol blah, blah, blah, and then something sways them the other way. And I don’t know really what the formula or what the influence changes, but I do know that at least providing education gives people the freedom to make the choice in an informed choice.
[00:20:33] Jake White: Absolutely. I would agree with you on that, Donnie. I think that just allowing them, like you said earlier, different stories, perspectives, and information to help them make that better choice for them, that’s what’s going to come down to you. We’re getting short on time, so I want to respect your schedule. Is there anything that you think, working with Greek organizations, things that people in drug education can do better with to make sure that they’re more effective and reach Greek students?
[00:21:09] Donnie Otto Bantle: I think it’s similar to sex education, we can’t teach abstinence-only because it’s going to happen. I’m not saying that always has to happen, but being able to be transparent about people going to have sex. People are going to drink. But there are also options for how do we be safe when we do it. Or, how do we have other opportunities to not have to do things as much? So if every weekend, there are two parties on Friday and one on Saturday, just reducing your drinking to one day a week can be significant, especially for brain development between 18 and 22. So, for me, I’d be looking back at party point porno, for example, some people were just turning off like they were the silver anti-alcoholics. When you’re on that side of the spectrum, that’s how you’re going to view alternative options. But if you approach it, do you want to be a part of something where you’re going to be able to do more? There are so many more fun things you can do when you’re sober versus when you’re intoxicated or under the influence. So it’s like being able to have both approaches, versus you having to pick one or the other. Because the both in allows both sides to be able to come together, the one or the other makes you feel like if I make a choice to drink, or do I not drink? Well, you could drink and not drink on different days. But I think the heart piece is when you’re in that new environment, trying to fit in and being confident with yourself. And it’s easy to be confident with alcohol.
[00:23:14] Jake White: That’s the shortcut.
[00:23:16] Donnie Otto Bantle: If they have more opportunities to try to be themselves if you’re more confident in spaces, like invite that net, we’d have fewer issues. So I think that the biggest piece is you can’t be black and white with it. You need to provide more gray and like not be as. Not that it’s intimidating, but sometimes it can be intimidating to be like, we’re still in sober parties.
[00:23:43] Jake White: That’s really well said, Donnie. I think you’re spot on. And even when it comes to influencing people in general, that is a great way to view it is that I’m not going to preach one area right down the middle and say this is the way because you’re ignoring 90% of the audience who thinks differently than you or who is different than you and the journey that they’re on. Because in reality, there are going to be people who are part of your population, they’re going down a certain path, they’re testing it out, they’re trying new things, and they need to go down that path to figure it out for themselves. And there are some people who are on the exact opposite, and they just need a different choice. And like you said too with my platform, whenever I speak to Greek flights, I have to tell them, “This is not an anti-alcohol presentation”. Even though I don’t serve alcohol at my parties, over half the students who come to these parties, do drink on other nights. So it’s not an either-or situation. As you said, it’s both ends. I’m here to share one perspective, one story, and if it can help you live a longer, happier, healthier life, then that’s fantastic. We spend a good time together. And most importantly, just keep each other safe, so that everyone feels comfortable going through their college experience and getting the most out of it that they possibly can. Because that’s what they want. They’re paying a lot of money for a college education, but also for that experience, and it’s our job to help them to come alongside them and make the most of it. And I think that what’s really cool about your position is you’re coming alongside them. And you’re getting to make sure that as they’re making choices that could have negative actions. That older sibling kind of figure to say, but I’ll be here with you, no matter what happens. I’ll be here with you. And I’ll be rooting for you and helping out along the way.
[00:25:43] Donnie Otto Bantle: Not telling you what to do, but how to do it and your options.
[00:25:47] Jake White: Thank you for coming onto the show Donnie and thanks for listening to this episode of “Party Talk” where we empower leaders in youth drug prevention. I’ll see you in the next episode.
