The sisters of Lamba Theta Alpha put together a beautifully well prepared event to bring awareness to drinking safely at a college campus.

On October 20 2015, in the Miron Student Center (MSC) room 315B, Keani Esparra, an undeclared junior and Lamba Theta Alpha fundraising chair, directed the event. Instead of an ordinary power point with refreshments as these events are typically ran Esparra tweaked it to make it more interesting, interactive and fun: a murder mystery.

“In the end, it’s to teach students how to drink at party’s safely,” Esparra said. “Originally it wasn’t supposed to be a safe drinking educational work shop, it was just going to be a fun Halloween event. Then we thought to change it into a murder mystery and a safe drinking event.”

Keani Esparra sitting at her duel narration/safe drinking table
Tom Bogert l The Cougar’s Byte

Esparra, with the help of a few sisters, created a “Clue” type of scenario. She set the scene detailing how a woman at a college party was drugged and killed. The attendees of the event were picked at random to fill the suspect roles. She crafted a comprehensive and detailed script with three rounds, each round the suspects were made to reveal more information about themselves.

Juliette Gomez, a junior psychology major, was one of those attending, though she didn’t get a role as a suspect, but stayed tuned in nonetheless.

“Yes, doing it as a murder mystery made me listen more because it kept me interested,” said Gomez. “Obviously this was a bit dramatic, but based on them getting us engaged; it made me more interested in what they’d have to say at the end.”

As previously mentioned, the murder mystery was carried over three rounds. Each round there’d be multiple lines each character had to say with more information about themselves, then they’d break, discuss more, and learn some information. For instance, one round the script detailed how she died, and it was a fatal amount of a date rape drug. Before the following round, Esparra had a table set up where everyone would come over and learn more about the common date rape drugs.

The narrative created by Esparra and her sisters was well thought out and executed well. She clearly took pride in it and put a great effort in for the event, a key reason why it went so smoothly.

“It was interesting and it made me listen,” said Gomez. “Based on their tips to drink safely at the end, like to always be with a group and the drugs that are most common, it’s definitely something I’ll think about and have in the back of my mind and trigger to remember.”