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By Katrina Irwin
October 9, 2006
It's an age-old problem on college campuses, underage drinking. But now, an online program may help with the problem.
Andrew Wall is an Assistant Professor at the University of Rochester. For the past several years he has been studying alcohol abuse prevention. He helped develop the "Alcohol 101" CD program and is now studying the effectiveness of one of the latest teaching tools. It's an online course called "AlcoholEdu".
"We wanted something that could be changed to meet students needs because we knew as soon as we put out that CD, "Alcohol 101" that it was already out of date," says Wall.
AlcoholEdu takes about 2 to 3 hours to complete. Wall says, it does result in small changes in student's attitudes towards drinking.
About 100 colleges in the country require all freshman to take the course. Wall says that's when the program has the biggest impact. "No longer are we in an era where it's enough to just have an alcohol educator who meets with students occasionally. Now we need to show that we're doing something meaningful."
On the University of Rochester campus only underage students who get caught drinking have to go through the AlcoholEdu program. Nancy Reynolds is a Health Educator with the U of R's University Health Service.
"Students look to the Internet for a lot of their information, so it has a lot of potential and students for the most part have responded well to the program. Even though it's mandated, they seem to enjoy it," she says.
Students we spoke with have heard of the program and do think that alcohol use by students is a problem that needs attention.
Nina Gadziala says, "if people knew more about effects it would change their mind."
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