Students learn how to have a 'Safe Spring Break' at carnival

During Emporia State’s third annual Safe Spring Break, students were able to learn how to enjoy their semester vacation in a fun and safe way. Although this is the third year for a Safe Spring Break event, it is the first year the event has been held in the form of a carnival.

“I think it’s great,” said Mary McDaniel, assistant director of Student Wellness. “There were at least 350 people here. I’ve been very pleased with the turnout. There has been better attendance this year than the last two years.”

Overall, students felt the event was educational and successful, even though some thought it was crowded.

“It’s awesome,” said Justin Richmond, junior music major. “I love it. There’s a lot of people, though, a lot of lines. It takes forever to get something.”

Students from the Newman Division of Nursing were in charge of creating and executing games for students. The nursing students have been planning their games since the beginning of the semester. The department of student affairs helped to allocate money to fund the different games.

“It’s been a lot of fun, but carrying a seven-foot tall penis down the street was kind of embarrassing,” said Mo Cassidy, senior nursing major, who helped create the game ‘Pick that Chancre’. To play the game, students had to pick off a handmade Velcro sore from a pink plywood penis and answer a question about sexually transmitted infections. After three correct answers, students could win color-changing pens, candy and a condom.

“It’s sadly surprising how many people are getting the easy questions wrong,” said Courtney Summerskill, senior nursing major who also helped with “Pick that Chancre.” “Like people thinking birth control pills will protect against STIs. We’re giving those people extra condoms.”

Another game for students involved two students racing against each other to match pictures of STDs with the correct name.

“I’ve actually been kind of shocked about how much people do know and how much they don’t know about what STDs look like,” said Taran Mejia, senior nursing major who was in charge of the STD identification game.

The faculty in charge of the event had positive feedback for the nursing students.

“I think they’ve done an exceptional job in being creative and being good critical thinkers to come up with games that appeal to this group of students,” said Jean DeDonder, professor in the department of nursing.

McDaniel explained the benefits that the event will have for the nursing students who will be graduating in May.

“Part of the reason we do this is to provide academic experience for the division of nursing students,” McDaniel said. “They get a lot of experience with this in planning and evaluating a health promotion event. It brings together a lot of departments campus-wide working together for one big event to benefit students.”

DeDonder hopes that the event will encourage students to have both a fun and safe break.

“I think we’ve been very pleased with the students,” DeDonder said. “We hope the education will help them make good decisions during spring break and throughout the rest of their lives.”

Carnival activities included a tattoo parlor, mocktails, a fortune teller, sun safety games, a sobriety check point, balloon animals and a magician. Another activity offered was “Defense with Damon,” which provided students an opportunity to learn some basic self-defense from an ESU faculty member before spring break.

“Spring break is kind of a crazy time, especially the way society is today,” said Damon Leiss, who teaches recreation and health classes in the HPER building. “Learning self-defense moves gives you more protection and it makes people more aware. Kids going into spring break are more concerned about taking a break and having a party and there are people out there that realize that they will try to take advantage of it.

Kids start drinking and all of a sudden, they lose control,” Leiss said. “Everybody knows that. So we want to get them to not lose control, and self-defense helps back that up. It protects them all the way around.”

Students enjoyed attending the event and felt that the games and activities helped them learn more about safety.

“I think it’s really good that they’re doing the self-defense thing,” Richmond said. “I think that’s something that everybody should know, especially before Spring break.”

The event was held in the Memorial Union Ballroom on Tuesday evening. Some of the prizes that students won included gas cards, grocery cards to Country Mart, t-shirts from the bookstore and two 80 gigabyte Zunes. The event was sponsored by the Department of Student Wellness, the Division of Student Affairs, the Newman Division of Nursing, G.A.M.M.A., Residential Life, S.O.S. and the Union Activities Council. According to McDaniel, Safe Spring Break will also occur next year.

“We’ve started the preliminary planning process and we’ll meet in about one month for the wrap-up,” McDaniel said. “We’ve already started talking about what worked well, what we should do differently. We’ll start planning seriously toward the end of the summer.”