News release Public Information Office   SLU 10880   Hammond, LA 70402   phone: 985-549-2341   fax: 985-549-2061 publicinfo@selu.edu     www.selu.edu/news Contact: Christina Chapple Date: 4/4/03   SLU PROGRAMS HIGHLIGHT SPRING BREAK SAFETY       HAMMOND --  Southeastern Louisiana University’s Division of Student Affairs is staging several programs to remind students to have a fun, but safe, Spring Break       Southeastern students will take a week’s break from their studies, April 18-27.        The Spring Break programs are sponsored by “Project Safe Campus,” a Southeastern Division of Student Affairs initiative designed to boost students’ awareness of a variety of personal safety issues.        The programs include a “mock fatality” on April 9 and “Mock Spring Break,” which will take place during the annual campus “Strawberry Jubilee” on April 16.        The mock fatality will dramatically demonstrated the consequences of drinking and driving, and Mock Spring Break will feature the distribution of information on risky behavior, said Project Safe Campus coordinator Carol Magendie, executive assistant to Vice President for Student Affairs Brad O’Hara.       Magendie said the mock fatality is the brainchild of two Southeastern residence hall assistants, biology major Eddie Koch and nursing major Chris Peltier, both of Ponchatoula. It is scheduled for 4 p.m. in the parking lot behind Southeastern’s Alumni Field.       Koch wrote the mock fatality “script,” which stages a scenario in which a carload of Spring Break-bound students who have been drinking crash head-on into a vehicle carrying a mother and her children. Peltier arranged for the mock fatality “cast,” which includes State Police Troop L’s Kevin Allen as narrator, Southeastern students, and personnel from the University Police, Tangipahoa Parish Sheriff’s Office, Hammond Fire Department, Acadian Ambulance and the Tangipahoa Parish coroner’s office.       As two wrecked cars are unveiled, Allen will narrate the collision’s tragic aftermath. “It’s  going to be very dramatic,” Magendie said. “Some of the crash’s ‘victims’ will leave the scene in body bags.”        Project Safe Campus also plans to join forces with the university’s sororities and fraternities to distribute pamphlets about risky behavior, such as excessive drinking and unprotected sex, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. during the April 16 Strawberry Jubilee. The annual campus event, sponsored each spring by the Campus Activities Board, treats students to strawberries, free food such as red beans and rice or jambalaya, music, and games in the Student Union Park.         Magendie said Project Safe Campus also plans to give away items such as sun screen and to raffle a summer “fun pack” donated by the campus’ Xerox Document Source.       Previously, Project Safe Campus has sponsored “Drawing the Shades,” a dramatic presentation of college students’ accounts of surviving sexual assault or rape, and has sponsored a panel discussion on suicide prevention.       Magendie said Project Safe Campus “has taken off like a lightening bolt. We want to grow it every semester. The goal is to encourage students to be smart and be safe.” Return to News Releases