Choose Responsibility

Several Iowa college campuses have struggled with alcohol-related incidents during this academic year, from a near-death and sexual assaults at Drake University to record-high hospitalizations at the University of Iowa. Last night, a panel of local addiction prevention experts met to discuss the issue of binge drinking in higher education, according to a report in the Des Moines Register. One participant, a juvenile court intake supervisor, said that in many cases the problem begins before students arrive at college, since consumption of hard liquor by underage drinkers is on the rise locally.

Check out Tyler O’Neil’s article in the Register and let us know what you think in the comments.

Following up on last week’s article in Advertising Age about anti-binge drinking advertisements that backfire with their intended audiences, GW Hatchet columnist Evan Schwartz sketched out his alternative vision of a responsible drinking campaign. He wrote that many anti-binge drinking advertisements fail to focus on the root of the problem, and are therefore ineffective:

“If anyone wants to effectively combat the problem of binge drinking, humiliation is not the way to go…Saying that underage drinking is illegal and binge drinking is dangerous does not make the problem go away, in the same way that humiliating someone who is binge drinking will not make that person stop.

Simply telling people who have a hangover that they should be ashamed of themselves is not effective; treating the source of the problem is. How many partying college kids even know that what they’re doing is considered ‘binge drinking?’ Setting a realistic threshold, and making sure people are aware of what they are doing, may help kids keep their drinking totals down. Letting kids know that drinking to solve other problems is not appropriate or effective is better than shaming them into changing.”

Which types of these advertisements do you think are the most effective? Let us know in the comments.

Late last week, Genaro Armas of the Associated Press introduced his readers to a recent tradition at Penn State University: “State Patty’s Day,” an unofficial holiday which takes place before St. Patrick’s Day. After its creation in 2007, the event quickly became infamous for heavy drinking, and this year, University administrators and local officials tried to encourage more responsible behavior: “Police, businesses and student leaders are trying to crack down this year on the event they say is just an excuse for a day of excessive drinking and destructive behavior.”

This week, we learned via the US News “Paper Trail” blog and the Daily Collegian that these pleas went largely unheeded, and the weekend saw a record number of arrests:

“The Daily Collegian reports that 160 partyers were arrested this past weekend. That’s more arrests than were made during the previous two State Patty’s Day weekends combined. Must have been a big weekend in State College.

‘The trend seems to be going the wrong way,’ State College Police Capt. Dana Leonard tells the Daily Collegian. ‘Everything is upward trending in the past three years–calls are up, alcohol overdoses are double. It’s a disturbing three-year trend.’”

Do students on your campus host similar unofficial holiday events that are characterized by heavy drinking? Let us know in the comments.

Amanda Jacobowitz, a columnist with Student Life at Washington University in St. Louis, asked her peers a direct question in her latest column: “Are we the blackout generation?” She argued that her peers have become desensitized to the dangers of toxic drinking and indifferent to the consequences:

“The excessive nature of college drinking is normalized into our culture and has turned into something we don’t even question anymore. When we guzzle down drink after drink, we are inducing memory loss and we are putting ourselves, our health, our relationships, even our lives at risk! Yet, every weekend, we start again, just waiting to see who blacks out next—immune to the consequences.”

Does her account match up with your experience on your campus or in your community? Let us know in the comments.

Alan Schier Zagier filed an Associated Press report this morning on a new trend among Midwestern colleges and universities: women are using “shot books” to commemorate their 21st birthdays, with one shot for every year represented. A professor of psychology at the University of Missouri called these books “a real tradition”:

“Shot books are made by and for women almost exclusively, especially in sororities, according to Sher and other experts. The keepsakes come bedecked with photos, drink names, bar locales and progressively sloppier signatures – visual reminders of a night of excess few could recall on their own.”

Check out the report in the Washington Post for more details. Alcohol-related deaths among U.S. college students are rising, and it’s clear that this ritual poses a threat to the health and safety of young adults. So we’d like to hear from you: are these shot books popular on your campus or in your community? Let us know in the comments.

Kelsey McKinney, a Dallas-area high school senior and “Student Voices” columnist for the Dallas Morning News, has seen the unintended consequences of Legal Age 21 firsthand. In her Sunday column, she proposed a potential solution to the problem of toxic drinking that she has witnessed among her peers: lower the drinking age.

McKinney spared few details in her column, and she cast the reality of alcohol in blunt terms:

“The current drinking age is not stopping underage drinking; it is simply causing it to become more secretive.

In that secret lies danger. Students treat drinking as a recreational activity instead of giving it the respect it deserves. Because they are unable to drink out in the open, they find ways to do it illegally – be that at parties or with fake identification.

Today’s young people, as a result of their underground drinking habits, have no idea how to consume alcohol with tolerance or wisdom. They have been taught to down as many drinks as they can in as short amount of time as possible.”

Check out the rest of her column and let us know what you think in the comments.

BC Heights columnist Joseph Pasquinelli took a hard look at the culture of toxic drinking at Boston College today, when he wrote that Legal Age 21 has contributed to a culture that “is not safe, responsible, or mature.” He observed how “weekend warriors are sent to the infirmary with alcohol poisoning. Others are ripping one too many shots and shot-gunning one too many beers. This usually results in our warrior, bent over a toilet or doing something he or she will regret.”

His answer to this persistent problem is fairly simple: change the drinking age. “If drinking were not illegal or a violation of policy for those under 21, there would be less instances of students becoming sick and behaving irresponsibly while under the influence. If drinking were legal, we could teach people from a younger age how to drink in a manner that is safe and mature…getting slammed out of one’s mind loses its appeal when it is not against policy to have a drink or two to end the day.”

He concludes his column with a call to action for students that implores them to take matters into their own hands by encouraging responsible behavior. Check out the rest of the column and let us know what you think in the comments.

Yale Daily News reporters Greta Stetson and Colin Ross tried to answer a simple question in today’s article, “Does Yale Have a Drinking Problem?” Their research indicates that the campus has experienced a spike in binge drinking this year, including a “record number of alcohol-related hospitalizations.”

Yale Police Chief James Perrotti told the Daily News reporters that Yale is not unique in this regard – “his counterparts at other schools have told him they are experiencing similar problems,” which we’ve seen in recent months at the University of Iowa and Penn State.

Check out today’s article and let us know what you think in the comments.

Dustin Reischman, a student at Washington State University, has launched a ballot initiative to lower the drinking age in his state from 21 to 19. He told Leah Ward of the Yakima Herald-Republic that he thinks Legal Age 21 is not working very well: “It seems like the way we are addressing the alcohol culture, trying to push it under the rug, is actually creating more problems…my hope is that people become more responsible with their alcohol consumption,” he said.

To earn a place on the November ballot, Reischman and his supporters will need to gather approximately 300,000 signatures by July 2. Check out The Stranger for more information on the initiative, and leave your thoughts in the comments.

On Monday, Karin Kapsidelis explored the issue of parental notification for alcohol violations at Virginia colleges for the Richmond Times-Dispatch. She noted that Virginia Tech recently made a change to its policy, which now mandates that parents be informed of all on-campus alcohol violations. Edward Spencer, Virginia Tech’s Vice President for Student Affairs, said the policy is designed to prevent the problems associated with toxic alcohol consumption:

“It’s a problem he links to the ‘alcohol culture’ created on campus after the legal drinking age was increased to 21 by Congress in 1984 in a law that tied highway funding to compliance. Virginia, which had been gradually raising the drinking age, complied by 1987.

Spencer recalls his own undergraduate days in the 1960s when his fraternity at the University of Rochester would have wine socials with deans and vice presidents. ‘We had a great time together, and nobody got drunk,’ he said.

But getting drunk is the point of drinking on college campuses now, Spencer said. Each Monday, he gets a report of weekend incidents on campus that usually includes two to five cases of students passed out drunk in residence-hall bathrooms — which would be a major offense.”

Kapsidelis pointed out that many colleges have had to adjust their parental notification policies as a result of the disconnect between Legal Age 21 and the age of majority: “At issue for the universities is whether to view students as full-fledged adults who are accountable for their actions, or recognize they’re in a somewhat awkward, in-between age with many gray areas about their status.”

What’s your take on these policies? Let us know in the comments.