While partying is a big aspect of college life most people look forward to, it is important to stay aware of proper party etiquette and look out for your fellow partygoers. We have become completely disconnected from one another and desensitized to the idea of interacting with and protecting each other. 

We spend more time tuning into the music playing and pumping in our headphones than we do with the world around us — with each other. . It is almost as if we have forgotten that we are human and what that means. This rings true for every setting we find ourselves in, even college parties. 

NIAAA estimates that about 696,000 students ages 18 to 24 are assaulted by another student who has been drinking. Researchers have confirmed a long-standing finding that 1 in 5 college women experience sexual assault during their time in college. A majority of sexual assaults in college involve alcohol or other substances. 

On Sept. 7, two high schoolers in attendance at a college party could have become this statistic. Aliyah Coleman, a junior family and consumer sciences major, recalled seeing two young women passed out on the street at a party while she and her friends were on their way to the car; the people they were with had left them there. 

“One was worse off than the other, so I checked her pulse,” she said. “It was faint but it was there. If I didn’t feel one I was about to start CPR and call 911.” 

Coleman and her friends rolled the young women onto their sides so they would not choke on their vomit in the event they would threw up. Coleman waited until their friends showed up. When the young women who had left the high schoolers appeared, they tried to justify pulling the disappearing act. Coleman did not leave the scene until after giving the young women a brief lecture, telling them that “if you come together, you leave together — no exceptions.” 

Another incident occurred in September of last year when a Hendrix freshman Ivory Danuser administered Narcan to an unconscious UCA student. 

Previously reported in The Echo, Danuser recalled that the student was alone and without shoes. His shirt was torn and he had bruises on his hips and blood in his nose and mouth. 

Danuser and her friends were driving down Bruce Street when they spotted the young man lying on the sidewalk near Donaghey Hall. “I don’t know how I could see someone in harm and just leave them there,” Danuser said in the article published Sept. 27, 2023. “He has a life, he has a family.”

There’s no telling how many cars passed by before Danuser and her friends finally reached him, but one thing is certain — Danuser could not have been the first. 

We often look with shame at the young women who left the high schoolers and the cars who passed the unconscious young man by, but we may have more in common with them than we think. 

Though it is practically programmed in our DNA, we have forgotten how to care about people, so let us remind you how to do it, especially at a scene like a party. 

For starters, stay with the people you came with at all times. If someone has to use the bathroom, hold your nose and join them. If someone leaves, then you leave too. 

Remember to know your limits. Pretty much everyone drinks at parties, but you need to avoid becoming so intoxicated that you lose awareness of your surroundings and control of your body. 

Most importantly, do not hesitate to call 911. 

If you call UCAPD for an emergency service while intoxicated, you will be granted amnesty.