Campus Alcohol Policy Designed to Educate
By ROBERT HILL
lcohol has been the shadowy aperitif to higher education for so long now that we are saddened but scarcely shocked when, each term with a terrible inevitability, college students die in incidents related to alcohol. Such was the fate last month of Benjamin Wynne, 20, a Sigma Alpha Epsilon pledge at the University of Louisiana, who never made it to his first classroom this semester, having consumed some 25 drinks within an hour during a fraternity celebration.
This is not about fraternities. Alcohol is one constant in the anecdotal record of youthful tragedy. The higher education media regularly headlines it in articles often bearing contradictory messages. Recent articles in the Chronicle of Higher Education detail the University of Delaware's intent to inform parents of their offspring's illegal drinking, on the one hand, and the University of Idaho's scheme, on the other, to lift local and state board of education alcohol bans to encourage "tailgate parties," hoping to raise the gate at home football games and boost the school's NCAA ranking from Division I-AA to I-A under the NCAA's classification standards based on stadium attendance. Clearly, the educational community is ambivalent on the topic.
And not a little frustrated. The same journal, in 1995, reported the voluntary ban on alcohol by fraternities at the University of Colorado in Boulder, a measure that a year later it reported, in the assessment of CU's president, an abject failure. A study by the Center for Disease Control reports that 34 percent of students interviewed binged at least once in the previous 30 days, a binge being at least five drinks at a sitting. The Chronicle also reports, in an August 1997 issue, that 40 percent of American students in 1995 (the most recent figures available) qualified as binge drinkers; averages vary from 45-50 percent, depending on the study. Nationally, figures for campus alcohol arrests in 1995 (15, 208) were roughly double those for drug arrests (6,797).
Alcohol abuse leads to further problems for institutions - crimes of violence, rape, vehicular injuries and fatalities, vandalism of campus and private property, and heightened student attrition. Alcohol contributes to social problems in the fishbowl existence of a dormitory, where personal insobriety can mean public disturbance. It increases absenteeism and increases demands on campus medical facilities.
The University of Delaware's approach to underaged drinking suggests the venerable notion of "in loco parentis." This, says campus Alcohol and Drug Education Coordinator Sandra Briner, is not CC's approach. "These students are adults, they're 18, and they're going to make choices about what they want to be involved in," she says. "We try to, at every turn, give them the tools to make good decisions. We treat them as adults, challenging them with why they are doing it, with what their behavior was, then trying to educate them. Our response depends on the situation. It could be an alcohol education seminar, it could be a mandatory counseling session - our goal is to link the sanction back to the behavior and to try to teach them. Somehow or other we always have an educational piece in there. We engage them in a conversation - it could be quite a lengthy one." But, she adds, the college's policy recognizes that "they're experimenting, they're finding their limits, and that's all part of the college experience."
The policies enforced at CC are fundamentally simple, based on state and federal prohibitions on drinkers under the age of 21. But legal considerations, Briner points out, are not the most compelling. "We focus on being a part of the Colorado College community, and the rights and responsibilities of being a community member," she says. That means, among other things, that college administrators as well as fellow students play a part in alcohol education. "We try to take care of all our issues in house, as much as possible. Rarely would we seek out local enforcement agencies in a situation involving underaged drinking," Briner insists. "We feel that we have better skills to deal with our students. We have more appropriate ways to educate them about those choices than the legal system does."
An administrative hearing is the first step in the campus judicial process for alcohol-related offenses - a processs that usually begins with one of the four residence hall directors or, for infractions off campus, with Dean of Students Michael Edmonds, who is chief campus judicial officer. With Paul Jones, director of resident life, says Briner, the campus maintains a system of "gatekeepers." The aim is to anticipate problems before they occur, by maintaining a series of checks at these "gates" and with judicial sanctions ("that sounds so legalistic," she notes) intended to educate the offender - for every student in violation of college alcohol policy there is a mandatory two-hour alcohol education seminar offered each block as part of the administrative judicial response.
The gates can be a formidable and proactive curb on abuses: every student function where alcohol is served must be registered with Briner's office, and she asks student representatives to justify the need for alcohol at particular events; the amount requested must meet established guidelines for crowd size. Crowd size and venue must be appropriate, as well as the time of the event; security is required. Each year, Briner trains a cadre of a dozen or so student servers for campus events, and their services are required at any student-sponsored function that includes alcohol. Reasonable bureaucratic impositions may not be deterrents, but they are salutary reminders that someone is paying attention. "We make them jump through hoops," she explains, "and they don't always like to do that."
Alcohol Awareness Week is a national campus event held each October, an opportunity for education across the student body. In addition, Briner conducts a program for all first-year students on binge drinking, and serves as adviser to Alternative, a substance awareness group that sponsors several annual alcohol-free events, including dances and Casino Night. The group is as much a part of the educational process as it is of the social landscape. "They're starting to become more educational, talking about alcohol issues peer to peer," she says. Alternative is now a presence at new student orientation, and has joined forces with SHARE, the student rape education group, to present alcohol abuse issues to first-year students. Alcohol and sexual violence, Briner points out, "are always interrelated, and we focus on that at every turn. At every turn, we talk about them together. And they listen - they start to put those two issues together, which is how we want them to see them."
In the pedagogy of alcohol responsibility, says Briner, the lesson is more readily heard when it is linked to larger issues such as sexual violence or health. "When you take an issue like AIDS, which everyone is sensitive to, and relate it to an old thing like alcohol which has been around forever, all of a sudden alcohol becomes a different issue for them, " Briner remarks. Another eye-opener is legal liability, which is a strong deterrent once students understand the possible legal consequences of abuse or negligence.
Programs of peer education, such as those conducted by Alternative and SHARE, Briner considers the most effective measure. "Peer education is the way to go, " Briner observes. "Students are going to listen to other students. All we know about alcohol in this age group is about fitting in, it's about peer pressure." The effect, she says, is "synergistic - every person we educate educates another person."