Take a Stand program<\/a>, which is offered through the university\u2019s Health Promotions office.<\/p>\n\u201cI want to enable and empower students to become active bystanders by giving them things to say or do in potentially dangerous situations,\u201d Leach said.<\/p>\n
That doesn\u2019t mean students must put themselves in danger or try to be a hero. Instead, Leach said, the program entails a series of steps to observe, gather information and decide if intervention is appropriate\u2014and if it is, how to take action.<\/p>\n
The situation doesn\u2019t need to be one of imminent violence. In fact, the program\u2019s training materials include a scenario in which a student encourages a friend to do something about the friend\u2019s alcohol abuse. Intervention situations also may involve hazing, sexual assault, physical abuse, discrimination and a host of other issues.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne person can make a difference,\u201d Leach said. \u201cI\u2019m very optimistic about that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Leach, who is in the educational leadership\/higher education master\u2019s program, spent about a year researching intervention programs. She based Take a Stand on the best-practice program Step Up that is used on the University of Arizona campus. So far, she said, students at NAU have responded enthusiastically to the three two-hour training sessions she\u2019s held this semester.<\/p>\n
One of them, sophomore\u00a0Kevin Wright<\/strong>, admits that he\u2019s been in situations where intervention would have been appropriate, but \u201cI hesitated to get involved. I honestly did not know what to do besides call the police.\u201d<\/p>\nAfter going through the training, Wright feels more prepared.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf I feel that the situation seems like a problem, I will go with my gut feeling and get involved,\u201d he said. \u201cAccording to the training, if I interpret the situation as a problem, then I would assume personal responsibility and intervene.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wright said that he\u2019s now more aware of his surroundings and feels that Take a Stand will help him in his roles as a resident assistant, peer adviser and student adviser.<\/p>\n
\u201cI could see that if more and more students were aware of this,\u201d Wright said, \u201cthen there would not be as much worry about what may happen on a college campus or anywhere else in everyday life.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Tragic events such as those at Penn State may draw national attention, but the resulting \u201csomeone should have done something\u201d chatter raises an important point about difficult encounters in everyday life. Just about everyone has been there. The mere mention of bystander intervention is enough to raise uncomfortable questions in the minds of most. Have…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":46,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6278","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-campus-community"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6278","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/46"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6278"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6278\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6278"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6278"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6278"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}