Salt Lake City, Utah – The Live Safe Foundation is thrilled to provide Textbook Credits as an incentive to the Greek community and Freshmen Residents at the University of Utah for participating in NIFAST’s (National Institute of Fire and Safety Training) Flashpoint College Fire Safety program at University of Utah. This past Monday, November 2, 2009, The University of Utah hosted a Fire Safety Initiative in the Chapel Glen area of campus where students, University officials and the local Salt Lake City fire fighters enjoyed cooking smores and raising awareness for fire safety on campus. A select group of students were selected to participate in taking the NIFAST Flashpoint Test via a bank of computers provided in the adjacent Residential Building. In support of the National Campus Fire Safety initiative and Fire Prevention Week in October, the University of Utah and its Greek community proudly collaborated with NIFAST in launching an on-campus fire safety curriculum that measures results helping to fulfill requirements by the Right to Know Act outlined recently by the Center for Campus Fire Safety.
This is a huge milestone for fire safety education in the Greek community at The University of Utah and just a starting point for Greek chapters nationwide. The cause for fire safety education supports recent federal legislation calling for key campus fire safety requirements and reporting and speaks to a clear need in the Greek community – a need to save lives through education. The NIFAST College Program focuses on student housing fire safety issues and risks – and the low level of knowledge most students have in this area. Most importantly, should the worst happen, the student will know how to approach a fire incident calmly.
“The biggest problem with fire safety is that no one thinks they will die in a fire. The challenge is to convince them that it is possible and to know what to do. The fact is fire is the leading cause of property damage worldwide,” explains Steve Smith, Executive Director of the National Institute of Fire and Safety Training (NIFAST).
NIFAST’s Flashpoint College Program is an innovative, “first of its kind”, with a custom online curriculum and test designed for students. The platform is an extremely comprehensive and in-depth curriculum with interactive training modules and thorough assessments, as well as a personal certificate of completion provided at the end. It is a home study course that is designed for convenience to encourage high participation levels and it is securely accessible through a training portal on the internet and administered exclusively between NIFAST and the University of Utah.
The Program:
- Instructs enrollees online
- Follows-up with an online assessment
- Provides instant results and instructional feedback
- Assigns and provides specific reading materials based on need
- Re-assesses until mastery is achieved – online tutorial corrects wrong answers and gives in-depth answers to missed questions
- Provides enrollees with proof of certification
- Provides the university with access to test data
The NIFAST College Program provides the school the capability to measure the student’s understanding. There are indicators of what students have learned and what they have not. With current legislation requiring schools to raise their measures of improvement, this is a huge burden on the schools.
The Live Safe Foundation cares that people know how to protect themselves and is dedicated to getting the message out of the need to prevent fires and the loss of life, as well as providing the tools for students to do this. Live Safe worked with The University of Utah in developing an incentive for the students to complete the test with hopes of 100% participation. The Fraternity and Sorority that finish first will be eligible for a $500 textbook credit, along with offering $5 textbook credits to a pool of Freshman Residents who have successfully completed the course. With over 250,000 Greek students, 12,000 chapters on 8,000 campuses nationwide, Live Safe strongly support’s NIFAST’s focus on providing practical fire safety education.
NIFAST is a national association comprised of certified fire safety professionals, founded and operated by fire safety industry leaders. The NIFAST mission is to broadly increase fire safety awareness, reduce the risk and number of fires, and thereby reduce loss of life, injury, and property damage through education. For more information, please visit www.NIFAST.org.
The Live Safe Foundation is a non-profit organization 501c3, and leading grassroots movement, devoted to making fire safety education, awareness initiatives and life saving tools available on a broad basis to communities, campuses, and institutions in an effort to reduce national fire fatalities and fire losses. Live Safe aims to help finance fire safety education where means are otherwise unavailable. Live Safe is developing and sponsoring programs to help groups find the resources needed to advance individual and community fire safety.
