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By Steve Hinnefeld
May 25, 2007
First-year students at Indiana University will complete an online alcohol-education program this summer as part of IU's effort to stem binge drinking by new arrivals on campus.
The requirement is part of a package of activities that also includes peer educators in residence halls and intervention for students who violate alcohol regulations, said Dick McKaig, dean of students and IU Bloomington vice president for student affairs.A $165,338 grant from the U.S. Department of Education will help fund the efforts and an evaluation by the Indiana Prevention Resource Center at IU. Ninth District Rep. Baron Hill, D-Ind., announced the grant this week.
"Now that the federal grant is here, we can really make it a comprehensive program," McKaig said.
The online program, called AlcoholEdu, comes from a Boston company called Outside the Classroom. Brandon Busteed, the founder and chief executive officer of the company, said it is required at about 250 colleges and universities.
McKaig said new students will learn about the program during freshman orientation in June and July. When they leave campus, they will be sent an e-mail message reminding them to go online and complete the AlcoholEdu program, which takes about two and a half hours.
The program starts with a confidential survey and, depending on the student's answers, moves on to interactive exchanges to convey scientifically valid information about the effects of alcohol use, he said.
"It embraces all students where they are, regardless of their previous drinking background," said Busteed, a 30-year-old who started the company after graduating from Duke University.
Outside the Classroom cites a 2005 University of Illinois study that found students who participated in the online program reported 50 percent fewer negative effects from alcohol use, such as missing class and having unprotected sex, than those who didn't.
Busteed said students often resist the idea of doing the online program, thinking they already know plenty about alcohol, but are surprised by what they learn.
"The average student gets a D on our pre-test," he said.
McKaig said IU will pay about $40,000 a year to have freshmen do AlcoholEdu. In addition to the federal grant, funding for the campus' alcohol prevention and evaluation effort includes university funds and a gift from the IU Parents Fund.
While there's no hard evidence that more IU students are drinking these days, there are signs that students are drinking more, McKaig said. "One of the things of concern is not so much the number of alcohol incidents but the sharp rise in alcohol levels," he said.
IU Police spokesman Capt. Jerry Minger said there were numerous incidents last fall in which students passed out from drinking, couldn't be revived and had to be taken by ambulance to the hospital. "With the opening of the dorms, we had as many as 3-5 a night," he said.
Busteed said it makes sense to get reliable information to students when they start college, because that's when many of them will develop long-term drinking habits.
Nationally, he said, about half of incoming college freshmen say in the summer that they abstain from alcohol, while 23 percent say they engage in binge drinking, defined as five drinks in a sitting for a man or four drinks for a woman. By the end of October, after two months of college, the figures are nearly reversed: 45 percent are bingers, and only 30 percent are abstainers.
"The whole idea in the primary prevention program is to help get out in front of the problem the best we can,"
Busteed said.
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