Finance sophomore Chris Origer noticed ducks and candy on his way to class and decided to check it out.
On Thursday, MSU Social Norms volunteers held the It’s Your Ducky Day event outside of Olin Health Center. The event was a health education opportunity for students, said Becky Allen, an alcohol, tobacco and other drug educator.
“It’s our opportunity to tell students what they’re doing right, not what they’re doing wrong,” she said.
Students collected bookmarks as they traveled from station to station and turned them in at the final booth to receive a free Duck Days T-shirt. Table topics included nutrition, alcohol information, sexual health, strength measurement and a survival hut with a variety of safety information.
Some of the stations allowed students to see how much they knew compared to others.
“It gives them the sense of where they are on a continuum of their peers,” Allen said.
After attending each station, Origer learned something new about the student community.
“MSU students are a lot more careful than I originally thought they were with alcohol consumption,” he said.
Origer felt if more students knew the rest of the university was being careful, others might be more careful in their decisions as well.
As the volunteers surveyed the students on their knowledge of alcohol abuse, many in the student community showed they were making good choices, Allen said.
“We’re actually seeing that students are making some really great decisions about their health,” she said.
The event also featured a duck pond with information concerning alcohol on the bottom of the ducks, as well as a root beer keg and an opportunity to use beer goggles.
Ashley Hofert, a social relations and policy sophomore, is a member of Allen’s “Quack Pack,” or the group of students that volunteered at the Duck Days events throughout the year. After spotting some of the Duck Days posters across campus, she contacted Allen to join the pack. For her, Duck Days seemed to be a good way to spread health and safety facts among the student community, Hofert said.
“It’s more of education than a lecture,” she said.
Graduate student Ashley Mcguire said the duck campaign occurs all year round in residence halls and cafeterias, concluding with Thursday’s event.
“This is kind of the last hoorah,” she said. “I’m hoping they get our message and what we want them to know about.”
McGuire worked the nutrition booth, at which students could learn about body image and eating disorders.
“It’s about debunking the myths,” she said.
Another Quack Pack member, Dylan McKay, a nutritional science sophomore, said the pack hopes to crush the stereotypes about common safety concerns across campus.
“We want to educate students and teach them real facts,” he said.
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The Residence Halls Association, or RHA, also helped the volunteers hold events in the residence halls throughout the year.
“RHA has been wonderful in terms up helping us co-sponsor these events,” Allen said.
The student reception has been great, typically receiving 500-700 students at each event, she said.
The Social Norms Duck campaign recently won the Pinnacle Award in public service and People’s Choice award from the Central Michigan Chapter of the Public Relations Society of America, or CMCPRSA, which judges public relations campaigns in Mid-Michigan, CMCPRSA website.
