“Something of Value” Program Designed to Help College Panhellenics Address Risky Situations in the Fraternity/Sorority Community
INDIANAPOLIS — The National Panhellenic Conference (NPC), one of the largest advocacy and support organizations for women, has announced the launch of a redesigned NPC “Something of Value” program. The redesigned program is a full-day interactive community building experience that helps College Panhellenic communities build capacity, relationships and influence in addressing risky situations in their community.
“As we set out to redesign the ‘Something of Value’ program, we knew we wanted to apply many of the lessons from NPC’s ‘Call for Critical Change,’ which was a gathering of leading industry professionals in January 2018,” said Carole Jones, NPC chairman. “Changing student cultures regarding risky behaviors requires an unprecedented level of candor, collaboration and cooperation between student leaders, university officials, fraternity/sorority advisors and alumnae advisors. The new program takes all of that into account so sorority women can lead the way for the type of necessary social change required to improve student safety on their campuses.”
“Sorority women must become more engaged advocates in the fight against dangerous campus cultures,” said Dani Weatherford, executive director of NPC. “What ‘Something of Value’ does is help them review specific aspects of their College Panhellenic community and campus culture related to risky behaviors and determine how to define a new future for their chapters, their fraternity/sorority community and on campus.”
NPC partnered with RISE Partnerships to refresh the “Something of Value” program. The program refresh included taking a new approach to the curriculum, providing more resources before and after the program presentation and creating new promotional materials.
The new “Something of Value” curriculum features a real-life simulated call to action, lessons in peer influence and social change, and deep, honest dialogue across chapters about healthy behaviors in the community.
“We have extensive experience developing education and risk prevention programs for fraternal organizations, and we combined that experience with research, theory and good practice in risk prevention to redesign the curriculum for ‘Something of Value,’” said Dan Wrona, CEO of RISE Partnerships. “The program is structured around the principles of community action, and the scenarios are tailored to the unique issues on each campus, so the curriculum will remain relevant even as risk management scenarios or topics change over time.”
Weatherford said, “Ultimately, we want women who participate in ‘Something of Value’ to be better connected with each other and the resources available to them, be more empowered to make significant, lasting culture change and have stronger influence over others as they work to prevent risky behaviors in their communities.”
NPC plans to pilot the refreshed “Something of Value” program on three campuses this fall. The pilot will continue during the winter/spring 2019 semester.
For more information about “Something of Value,” visit the NPC website.
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About the National Panhellenic Conference (NPC)
NPC, one of the largest organizations advocating for women, is the umbrella group for 26 national and international sororities. NPC sororities are located on more than 670 campuses with 380,565 undergraduate members in 3,234 chapters. Alumnae are represented in 3,889 associations throughout the world. For more information, including a complete list of NPC sororities, visit npcwomen.org or find NPC on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.
About RISE Partnerships
RISE Partnerships provides consulting, training, and curriculum to help fraternity/sorority leaders do their best work. Since its founding in 2000, RISE has developed programs for hundreds of campuses and more than 30 fraternal organizations, including many NPC member organizations. (risepartnerships.com)
