Sunday marked the first day of National Hazing Prevention Week on campus and events are scheduled throughout the week to show support for the cause.

The Greek councils including the Pan-Hellenic Council, the National Pan-Hellenic Council, Interfraternity Council and Lambda Alpha Delta organization with the help of graduate assistants in fraternity and sorority programs are putting events for the week together.

Colton Janes, the graduate assistant for fraternity and sorority programs, said National Hazing Prevention Week is a national program that universities and organizations use to create ways to remind individuals that hazing is illegal.

“(It is) also finding healthy programming both passive and active to get students invested and involved in what’s important for the community as a whole at universities,” Janes said.

HazingPrevention.Org established the National Hazing Prevention Week and the week is designated for final week of September.

Dean Harwood, the director of fraternity and sorority programs, said the week is still fairly new to Eastern’s campus, but he has seen the impact of the program since it began.

“NHPW is still a young concept at EIU,” Harwood said. “We have seen growth each year and we will continue to grow the program over time. Anything we can do to create awareness of hazing issues is a positive.”

Scheduled events for the week are to begin Monday.

The Pan-Hellenic Council encourages students on campus to wear any clothing with red to show support for hazing prevention.

The Lambda Alpha Delta organization will be showing a hazing documentary followed by a discussion at 6 p.m. in the Arcola-Tuscola Room of the Martin Luther King Jr. University Union Monday.

The National Pan-Hellenic Council will host a question and answer session on twitter at 7 p.m. Wednesday.

Students can participate in the online session by tweeting questions to @EiuNphc and using the hashtags NPHW15 or NPHC.

The Interfraternity Council will help conclude the week at 4 p.m Thursday with the Greek Unity Barbecue in Greek Court.

During the barbecue, members from different fraternity and sorority chapters will come together to create a banner with the theme of “These Hands Don’t Haze.”

Janes said students would use paint to create handprints on the banner in show the different representation of different chapters existing within the Interfraternity Council.

“We can always use more participation from individuals and members,” Harwood said. “I expect that the program will continue to grow as it becomes an annual tradition on campus.”

Janes said that the topic of hazing prevention is becoming a larger topic nationally, and he said that it is not a topic that should be designated for the final week of September.

“It’s definitely growing as a hot-button topic because if you check the social media or news articles, if something hits the news, it’s going to hit hard,” Janes said. “Hazing prevention is not just a week, it’s 52 weeks. That’s what’s important. It needs to be an ongoing conversation that exists.”

Chris Picazo can be reached at 581-2812 or cepicazo@eiu.edu