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By David Robinson
October 23, 2003
In Lower Merion, many residents have a narrow view of Villanova students based on the line of sight between the township's establishments serving alcohol and the entrance to the school. The general assumption is that any college age student on Lancaster Avenue must be going from one to the other.
Villanova's administration, as with most major colleges, has a wider view of college drinking as a national problem they inherit every year with each incoming class.
1,400 college students aged 18 to 24 die each year from alcohol-related unintentional injuries.
More than 600,000 students aged 18 to 24 are assaulted by another student who has been drinking.
400,000 students aged 18 to 24 each year have unprotected sex and more than 100,000 are too intoxicated to know whether they consented to having sex.
At Villanova, as with every other school in the nation, student lack of knowledge about alcohol, and poor choices made with alcohol spring anew with each freshman class. For years, the nation's universities and colleges have tried lectures, posters, peer pressure and alcohol-free events, but these tools don't reach every incoming student, and they don't require active participation by the students.
Villanova, along with 200 other schools, now has a program that reaches every freshman and requires action. The program is an interactive software program called AlcoholEdu, from a company called Outside The Classroom, and it is a mandatory course for Villanova freshman.
Recently, Villanova's Father John Stack, vice president of student affairs, Paul Pugh, dean of students, and Catherine Lovecchio, director of health & wellness education, hosted a presentation for area high schools and colleges covering how AlcoholEdu has been working at the university. Along with Villanova personnel were representatives from Princeton, Elizabethtown College and St. Joseph's University, which also use the program. Also present was Catherine Bath, program director of Security on Campus, a national nonprofit concerned with student safety. Her son died three and a half years ago at Duke University, due to an alcohol related incident.
Dr. Richard Keeling, vice president of prevention programs at Outside The Classroom, explained that the AlcoholEdu on-line program treats students like adults and educates the entire population. The course is two and a half hours in length, but students can log in and out over a designated period of time to complete the course. "AlcoholEdu," Keeling noted, "is not a game, but a personalized, academic course that shows students what they really don't know about alcohol and their bodies." He explained how drinking is a social phenomenon that happens in a social network and each subgroup, such as fraternity, dormitory or apartment residents, student athletes, intellects, and racial groups, has its own distinct drinking patterns. "Many students expect alcohol to help them fit in, to meet people, to have fun, or to relax in meeting new people," he said. "Most high risk drinking is driven by social relational needs, such as by influential students, social events, or athletic celebrations." He pointed out that AlcoholEdu address the ides, "if it is spread by social pressures, then you have to reach all members of the social groups on an individual level."
AlcoholEdu asks personalized questions to men and women, from abstainers to problem drinkers, regarding their perceptions and choices, such as: Do they skip a meal to "save calories" for alcohol, or start drinking before going out?
The responses educate the individuals and lead to measurable changes in their perceptions, attitudes, consumption and drinking patterns. Keeling also explained that the program is strictly confidential and noted that the only information Outside The Classroom provides to the administration are an individual's attendance sheet and the final status of pass/fail. Keeling stressed that AlcoholEdu is not a "silver bullet" for the problems of alcohol, but that the results from using the program are measurable and can make a difference in students' lives.
Pugh explained that the mandatory AlcoholEdu course for freshman must be completed within the first seven weeks of school. He said the administration began introducing the course to student leaders, athletes and faculty, and "built a bow wave of support" that was followed by the general student body, who then began talking about the course in the dorm hallways. He noted that the school is in the third year of using the program. When students are asked "Would you recommend the course to a friend?", 73 percent said "Yes." He noted statistics on the number of students who have decreased their drinking; that there is less mixing of drinking of medication; fewer students are "preloading" where they drink before going out; and fewer students are afraid to call themselves "abstainers." Pugh said, "AlcoholEdu is the cornerstone in our alcohol awareness program."
Lovecchio noted that this year's freshmen have finished the course this fall, and said AlcoholEdu is one tool in the educational framework of Villanova's new Health Center. She explained the center's peer education program for alcohol and substance abuse, and sexual offense, nothing that with AlcoholEdu as a required course, the peer presentations don't need to speak on the basics of alcohol consumption as the students now know it. Other tools the school uses for alcohol awareness are alcohol free events, informational games and sports events, and a news sheet called "Stall St. Journal" that is placed on the back of the doors in the toilet stalls.
Also attending the presentation were representatives from Shipley, the Academy of Notre Dame de Namur, Episcopal Academy and some of the area's public school districts. Most high school and middle school administrators are well aware of the fact that alcohol use begins before students enter college. Binge drinking during high school, especially among men, is strongly predictive of binge drinking in college.
Approximately 30 percent of 12th-graders engage in heavy episodic drinking, now popularly termed "binge" drinking - that is, having at least five or more drinks on one occasion within the past two weeks - and it is estimated that 20 percent do so on more than one occasion.
By the time they reach the eighth grade, nearly 50 percent of adolescents have had at least one drink, and over 20 percent report having been "drunk."
Approximately 20 percent of eighth-graders and almost 50 percent of 12th-graders have consumed alcohol within the past 30 days.
The rate of alcohol-related traffic crashes is greater for drivers ages 16 to 20 than for drivers age 21 and older.
Brandon Busteed, founder and chairman of Outside The Classroom, noted that a new program, AlcoholEdu for Youth, in partnership with Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD), will soon be available for high school students and new drivers.
Next month is National Collegiate Alcohol Awareness month. Lovecchio said that Villanova's theme for the month is "Life is a terrible thing when it is wasted." This message speaks to the commonality in the word "wasted" as a desecration, squandering, and throwing away of the good and meaningful things in life and "wasted" as a common term for drunk.
What was apparent from the morning's presentation was the enormous scale of alcohol abuse among the young and the fact that schools, from neighborhood middle schools to prestigious universities, take more than their share of the blame. As Brandon Busteed said, "Alcohol abuse is such a widespread campus and community concern that it has become everyone's problem, but no one's responsibility."
References for statistics and further reading are:
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