Foundation pledges to end hazing

Author: Rachael Jennings

Imagine that your friend is lying still on a hard floor, arms scribbled with Sharpie, facedown. Imagine that, surrounded by crushed cans of beer and empty handles, he is dead, and has been dead for hours.

We have all encountered situations involving passed out friends at parties, so when the alcohol-awareness focused organization - The Gordie Foundation - visited Middlebury College on March 6, the presentation really hit home for many listeners.

Bailey - known as "Gordie" to his friends - was a lacrosse-playing football captain at Deerfield Academy, where he was a classmate of Zmira Zilkha '08.5.

"He was a 230-pound burst of kindness," Zilkha said. "He was often compared to a big, happy golden retriever, and gave the best hugs around."

In fact, Bailey had helped start a "Hug Club" at Deerfield, where he also participated in theatrical productions and entertained friends by playing music on his guitar.

Bailey matriculated at the University of Colorado at Boulder and decided to rush the Chi Psi fraternity. Three weeks into the school year, he and 26 other pledges were driven out to the Arapaho Roosevelt National Forest. Left around a campfire with four handles of whiskey and six bottles of wine, they were given half an hour to consume all of the alcohol.

When Bailey and the other pledges returned to the Chi Psi house, he was visibly intoxicated - witnesses later said they saw his eyes rolling back into his head. He did not drink any more and passed out on a couch at around 11 p.m.

Upon awakening, the other fraternity members and pledges understood that Bailey was not breathing and made an effort to erase the vulgar and racially insensitive marks they had made.

"It's hard when your last memory of your friend is coloring him in," admitted one of Bailey's fellow pledges.

Serena Keith, a friend of Bailey's who was interviewed for the recent documentary "Haze" that details his story, lamented the unfortunate fact that none of his fellow revelers had thought to call an ambulance the night before, when medical attention could have saved his life.

"One of the hardest things is knowing how easily it could have been avoided," Keith said.?

The documentary, which Zilkha called "shocking, poignant and appropriately realistic," splices photos, home videos and interviews with family, friends and fraternity members who knew Bailey. In honor of the film's release, Bailey's stepfather Michael Lanahan visited Middlebury on March 6 and spoke before screening "Haze" to roughly 120 students.

Lanahan is one of the founders of the The Gordie Foundation, which - through its Circle of Trust chapters at over 85 American universities and one million student members - has been very active in raising awareness among today's youth about the dangerous culture of binge drinking and hazing that is so prevalent on college campuses.

The event was organized as part of "Safe Spring Break" week, an initiative put forth by the office of Health and Wellness Education.

"Our intent was to show students how Gordie's life could have been spared," explained Jyoti Daniere, Health and Wellness Director for the College. "We wanted to educate them about the signs and risks of alcohol poisoning and to reach out to our student leaders and have them begin to question the drinking culture here at Middlebury."

Zilkha noted the predominance of that drinking culture across America.

"It has become the norm of our country," Zilkha said.

Indeed, according to data collected by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, 1,700 college students die each year from alcohol-related causes and almost 600,000 students suffer alcohol-related injuries. Twenty-two percent of college students meet the criteria for alcohol abuse or addiction.

Walker Dimmig '08, who also attended Deerfield with Bailey, spoke to the perceived threat of an alcohol-related tragedy occurring at Middlebury, expressing his concern that many first-years enter college without "the proper tools to navigate the drinking culture."

"I think overall Midd has a pretty benign drinking culture," Dimmig said. "But I think it certainly has been pushed behind closed doors and into hiding by a number of administrative moves over the years."

Dimmig recalled a fond memory from his high school days with Bailey. Deerfield seniors traditionally place college admissions decisions on their dorm room walls - acceptance letters right side up, rejections upside down and waitlist letters sideways. Bailey decided to post his letters on his door instead, for every passerby to view.

"There were probably more rejection letters than he would have liked," said Dimmig, "and when he would catch kids not doing work during study hall he would march them down the hall, point to the door and ask, 'Do you want your door to look like this your senior year? Didn't think so, now go work.'"

So next time you find yourself in the presence of an intoxicated friend, try to imagine your own Gordie making you laugh and then heed the motto of The Gordie Foundation - "Save a life. Make the call."