Before students dress themselves head-to-toe in green gear this year for State Patty’s Day, student leaders want to share how they feel about the student-created drinking holiday.
University Park Undergraduate Association President Courtney Lennartz said a video that will encourage students to rethink their behavior on the “holiday,” which is scheduled for Feb. 23 this year, will be released to students on Monday.
“The overall goal of the video is to get students to take a step back and think about the consequences of their actions and how it will effect Penn State,” Lennartz (senior-health policy and administration)said.
The video was put together by Lennartz, as well as Blue and White Society President Leslie Pinero and Association of Residence Hall Students President Caleb Fernandez. The video was completed Wednesday, Lennartz said, and only features input from student leaders, not administration or faculty.
Lennartz will meet today with Damon Sims, Penn State vice president for student affairs, to discuss how exactly the video will be released.
Former UPUA President TJ Bard said the video allows student leaders to share how to act responsibly on State Patty’s Day.
“Our biggest goal is to reach out to students on a peer-to-peer basis,” Bard (senior-economics) said. “We want to get our message as students across to other students.”
Bard said the video also addresses how students should avoid inviting friends for the weekend because it is not worth the amount of trouble they could get into.
While Bard said the video does not discourage students from inviting friends to Penn State, the video does encourage students to wait for other weekends to have guests.
“[Visitors] have a higher likelihood of getting into trouble this weekend,” Bard said. “There’s a lot of other weekends to invite your friends and show them what downtown is about.”
Graduate Student Association President Wanika Fisher was also featured in the video to further encourage students to make smart decisions during the holiday.
For her part in the video, Fisher explained how academic violations could follow students into their future. Fisher said academic violations make it more difficult to get into law school or medical school.
Fisher (graduate-law) said students who watch the video should also think about consequences to the community that are caused by their behavior.
“It hurts the town economy and also affects people waiting in emergency rooms because students have to get their stomach pumped or are too drunk,” Fisher said.
Fisher said the video reminds students that they live in a community with other people and they need to respect that, even if out-of-town visitors may cause most of the damage or trouble.
“We are all students and as much as we go to school, we also have to respect our community.”
Although GSA has a different student population than the undergraduate student body, Fisher said the video is still important for them to see and that is why she decided to take part in its message.
“For my constituents, 99 percent of them are over 21, so it’s not about telling them not to drink, but just not to get to that point,” Fisher said.
