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Times Leader Opinion
May 20, 2008
DRINKING AND COLLEGE life have been part of the American culture for decades, spawning cult movies such as "Animal House" and earning some fraternities nicknames like "tappa kegga."
Swigging a beer with college buddies has become a rite of passage for generations of college-educated men and women. Long-term relationships have been sealed with the clink of frosty mugs, and memories of those events are replayed (and embellished) as the years go by.
The problem - for both the individuals and institutions - arises when that beer or two turns into heavy consumption and binge drinking.
Penn State University President Graham Spanier has been at the forefront of efforts to control campus binge drinking for nearly a decade. Now, thanks to his vigilance, incoming Penn State freshmen will have to take an online alcohol-awareness course before beginning their first semesters.
The program, called AlcoholEdu, is designed to combat high-risk drinking among students and raise their awareness about abuse hazards. Designed by a Boston-based company that uses science-based prevention techniques, it is required at about 250 other colleges nationwide.
We particularly like the program's second component, which requires a follow-up survey during the first semester that gauges how much useful information students retained. It will serve as a reminder to them that excessive drinking is hazardous to one's health, safety and academic welfare.
There's no premise here that heavy college drinking will become a thing of the past; the goal is to reduce binge drinking, a growing national concern.
Spanier and others attuned to the problem have noted that an increase in binge drinking has:
- Become the number one health risk to college students. About 50 students die each year from drinking-related causes.
- Become the major impediment to developing socially responsible citizens of good character.
- Solidified alcohol as the drug of choice among our nation's youth.
- Grown to the point where more than 40 percent of college students partake, according to ongoing studies by Harvard University's School of Public Health.
Penn State - with its 40,000-student University Park site and vast network of branch campuses, including two in Luzerne County - already has been addressing this problem on many fronts, including working with fraternities and sororities, scheduling alternative activities and providing intervention. AlcoholEdu will be another tool in its arsenal.
The first step to correcting a problem is acknowledgement, followed by purposeful response. Penn State has joined other universities locally and nationally by dealing with the problem instead of letting it simmer on the back burner.
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