Health and Wellness survey sheds light on freshmen drinking

11/20/2008

The Vanguard

By Dan Merica

In the annual AlcoholEDU survey administered by the Center for Health and Wellness, 20 percent of Bentley freshman indicated that they are choosing not to drink, a figure that it the Center for Health and Wellness takes pride in.

"That's a really positive number," said Jessica Greher, "Sometimes I speak to students and they feel like there isn't anything else but drinking to do on campus and when people feel that way, you have to worry. This number proves that feeling wrong."

Greher also identified that this number is consistent with the trends found at most colleges around the United States, where 20 percent of students choose not to drink, 20 percent are considered high risk drinkers and 60 percent fall somewhere in the middle.

In the same AlcoholEDU survey, 570 students said that they would be interested in participating or volunteering in events around campus that did not involve alcohol. This number, which was up from last year, was enough of an increase to basically ignite the flame to create programs for freshman that did not involve alcohol.

"This is part of a comprehensive framework that has proven to be effective in combating binge drinking on college campuses," said Greher, "We wanted to provide alternatives

to drinking, so it's one thing that we saw we didn't have on campus and it would added a lot to what we already do."

With help from the Center for Health and Wellness, Bentley's Program Coordinator for Student Activities, Jessica Kenerson decided to take the project on because before taking her position at Bentley, she dealt extensively with late night programming at Boston College.

"We saw that there was a need for these things on campus and after the first few nights, saw that people are not only saying they want to attend, but actually attending the event," said Kenerson.

With themed nights ranging from trivia, Mexican fiesta and Halloween and American Pie, Kenerson has seen a steady increase in attendance over the past few weeks, with an average of 70 students enjoying the programming. Kenerson is hoping that the steady increase will lead to more options for students around campus.

"The vision of the program is to expand to different areas on campus and do both Friday and Saturday night," said Kenerson, "Eventually there will hopefully be programming all over campus, with small scale programs that people can drop in and check it out."

In addition to the statistics that were used to kick off the late night programming, other trends concerning Bentley's drinking culture were released by the Health and Wellness Center.

Ninety eight percent of students indicated that they would want their friends to tell them if their drinking or other substance abuse caused worry. 40.9 percent of students who indicated they had been drinking, stated that they have had a friend tell them when they had enough. These numbers, Greher felt, validated the "Be a Spotter" program the Health and Wellness Center initiated this year.

"These numbers aren't too far off from the national statistics, but I think it has more to do with young people as a whole," said Greher, "We know that these are their drinking rates before they come into campus."

While these numbers may not be reflective of Bentley's drinking culture, Greher does feel that there are some trends, both from AlcoholEDU and other drinking studies, that may help shed light on the presence of alcohol on campus.

"Research that was done in the late 90's showed that New England tends to have the highest consumption patterns," said Greher, "Also, campuses that tend to have a majority of male population, tend to have higher drinking rates. That is something we can't fight, that is just the nature of our campus."

According to Greher, there are also studies that show business schools have higher drinking rates because, as she puts it's "the business culture in our country sometimes supports the use of alcohol."

Greher did acknowledge that these statistics are from the first round of AlcoholEDU statistics, the second round, which are administered once freshman have been on college campuses for a few months, will not be out till January.