Three weeks after arriving at the University of Colorado at Boulder in Sept. 2004, Lynn Gordon "Gordie" Bailey Jr. died of an alcohol overdose. Today, the Gordie Center for Substance Abuse Prevention, together with the Alcohol and Drug Abuse Prevention Team, are working as part of a nationwide effort to educate students about alcohol safety on Grounds.
“ADAPT is a special service organization,” third-year Commerce student Caity Briggs said. “[Its goal] is to promote peer health, so we talk about social norms, bystander intervention and basic alcohol and drug knowledge, so that people have the facts and can make an informed decision.”
Last Thursday, the Gordie Foundation and ADAPT — the foundation’s student-led arm in charge of peer education — hosted Gordie Day, an event sponsored by Gordie’s family held annually in conjunction with National Hazing Prevention Week. As a programming highlight, the University’s Gordie Center brought in Travis Apgar, an associate dean of students at Cornell University, who told his personal story of triumph over tragedy and advocated for anti-hazing policy.
“[Apgar] has taken his experience both from hazing on a sports team and in a fraternity to advocate for students and break the cycle,” fourth-year Commerce student Ted Growney said. “[Apgar] tells some personal stories. … It was extremely powerful and very emotional. I definitely walked away knowing more about it.”
Growney and Gordie both attended high school at Deerfield Academy. As soon as they arrived on Grounds, Growney and his fellow Deerfield classmates decided they wanted to become involved in ADAPT.
“We thought we kind of owe it to [Gordie] and … his family and the organization to help out as much as we can,” Growney said.
The Gordie Foundation concurrently runs a number of projects. One initiative is screening “Haze,” a film made by the foundation detailing the dangers of alcohol as they pertain to fraternity hazing rituals.
"It shows you how [hazing] can get out of hand in a fraternity environment — especially at a school like U.Va. where fraternities and sororities are very prevalent,” Growney said. “I think that it is very important for people to see it."
ADAPT, meanwhile, works year-round to engage students in discussions about substance abuse, typically working from a prevention standpoint by handing out materials such as check cards, which keep track of drinks consumed in an evening, and standard drink charts, so students can roughly calculate their blood alcohol content.
“I have definitely seen more recognition of Gordie from my first-year until now,” Growney said. “Whether it is painting Beta Bridge or handing out T-shirts like we did last year, we are promoting the ‘brand’ so that people are more aware.”
Over the years, the Inter-Fraternity Council and Inter-Sorority Council have also worked alongside ADAPT and the Gordie Center to increase awareness and promote measures of responsible consumption.
Ultimately, the Gordie Center and ADAPT hope their initiatives will remind students to practice safe behavior well beyond last week’s awareness push.
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