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15 campuses are offering online tutorial to help individuals recognize problem
By Rick Karlin
May 25, 2006
College students nationwide, including those at the State University of New York system, have for several years now been able to register and take care of other business online.
Now, a group of 15 SUNY campuses, including those at New Paltz and Binghamton, are taking their Web-based programs in a new direction with an online, self-directed tutorial designed to tell students whether they have a drinking problem.
As they navigate through the AlcoholEdu tutorial, students are asked about their age and weight, and are given multiple choice queries on their drinking habits. Questions also include whether they take drugs or binge-drink and how that affects their studies.
"It is what we call a population-level alcohol prevention program," said Erika Tower, spokeswoman for Outside The Classroom, a Needham, Mass.-based company that won a $100,000 bid to supply the tutorials. The idea of using the Web, said Tower, is simple.
Most alcohol prevention programs that are given in person are time-consuming and require so much logistical planning that it's difficult, if not impossible, to give them to all students, even newly arriving freshmen.
But the tutorial, which takes about three hours to complete, can be done on one's own time.
So far, the idea seems to be catching on, with more than 400 schools nationwide using the program, according to the company.
At some schools, students are required to take the course before they can be fully registered, Tower said. SUNY officials said that decision would be made on a campus-by-campus basis.
Other SUNY schools instituting the tutorial are those at Geneseo, Purchase, Delhi, Brockport, Fredonia, Potsdam, Old Westbury and Canton, as well as Buffalo State College, North Country Community College, Fashion Institute of Technology, State University at Stony Brook and State University at Buffalo.
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