“Thank God it’s Friday” will mean more than excess partying to NIU fraternities and sororities this spring.

Terry Appolonia, former president of the Association of Fraternity Advisers, said TGIF, The Greek Intervention Framework, is a peer counseling program which might benefit members of NIU greek organizations.

“We want students on campuses where TGIF is implemented to hear the acronym and think of the program, not of partying to excess,” Appolonia said. “It is exactly the accepted behavioral norm the program is devoted to changing.”

TGIF will coordinate such activities as the National Collegiate Alcohol Awareness Week and Drug Awareness Week.

Greek Affairs Adviser Mary Ronan said this is not yet an approved program at NIU. The newly-elected Panhellenic and InterFraternity Council officers will oversee it when it gets started this spring, Ronan said.

Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pa., uses TGIF, Appolonia said. A drug and alcohol counselor, a psychiatrist and an eating disorder specialist train undergraduate fraternity and sorority members at Lehigh. Student peers are taught to recognize alcohol and drug abuse, depression, suicide, grief and eating disorders.

There is a strong emphasis on intervention at Lehigh, Appolonia said. Friends of a greek with a health problem are trained to spot symptoms and help the person seek help at a campus counseling center.

Each peer volunteer must serve for at least one school year, be respected as a trustworthy member of his greek chapter and understand that he is not a heatlh care professional, Appolonia said.

TGIF first began on the CSX Rail Transportation System in West Virginia. This TGIF program was a union-initiated program developed in 1984 to reduce alcohol and drug abuse on the railroad.