Alcohol education course is right approach at UW

9/9/2009

Casper Star Tribune

The University of Wyoming should be commended for its participation in an online alcohol educational program for new students.

For the second year, nearly all of the 1,630 incoming UW freshmen have completed the first part of AlcoholEDU, a three-part course designed to educate students about alcohol and its effects. It's used at more than 500 campuses throughout the nation. The course is designed for all students, whether they are frequent heavy drinkers, light to moderate drinkers, or non-drinkers.

The program may be time consuming for students as they prepare for college life, but it's useful and necessary.

UW has long had a reputation as a "party school" that's been difficult to shake over the years, despite the best attempts by the administration to make students aware of the damage that can be caused by binge drinking. AlcoholEDU has a good chance of making a positive difference in the lives of students.

Some freshmen were admittedly wary about the course this year. Student Vice President Danee Hunzie told Laramie Boomerang reporter Carrie Haderlie, "During orientation, students were really resistant to the program, and when we came back (for school), they liked it a lot better. It (doesn't) lecture them, like 'you cannot drink,' and that is what they thought it was about."

After taking the first part, Hunzie said students were "a lot more positive and receptive to it."

AlcoholEDU officials say the course tries to stop high-risk drinking by creating a learning experience that:

* Motivates behavior change.

* Resets unrealistic expectations about the effects of alcohol.

* Links choices about drinking to academic and personal success.

* Helps students practice safer decision-making.

The Laramie campus had plenty of motivation to get involved in the program. The 2001 deaths of eight members of the UW cross country team, who were killed south of Laramie when they were struck by a van driven by an intoxicated UW student, put the university in the national spotlight.

More negative publicity came in 2006, when alcohol was involved in a double homicide and suicide of UW students in an off-campus apartment.

That same year, a federal report showed that Albany County, home to the university, and Carbon County had the highest rate of alcohol dependence or abuse in the nation at 13.5 percent. A spokeswoman for the Wyoming First Lady's Initiative to Reduce Childhood Drinking explained, "The university inherits students from all over the state, and they don't start drinking at this level and this age ... The university inherits this problem from communities all over the state."

That's one of the reasons we encourage school districts not yet involved in AlcoholEDU's high school course to investigate the possibility of using it. It could also give students bound for UW a head start on learning some of the material.

It's good to know that university officials have adopted this course with the idea to make the Laramie campus a safer place by reducing high-risk drinking. One educational course won't eliminate all of the concerns of parents about sending their children off to college, but it should lessen their fears to know that the freshmen are getting professional help to make good choices.