Combating Alcohol Abuse on College Campuses

               There is agreement in the fact that colleges and universities are faced with an alcohol issue. Students binge drinking has become part of the college culture on many campuses. The way in which university leaders, community leaders, and students want to combat this issue varies greatly. Solutions cover the gamut with education, stricter enforcement, and lower drinking age.

                Many universities are trying to change the drinking culture on their campuses through education. Some are using programming in the residence halls or campus wide events to spark discussion about the true alcohol culture on campus.

“Indiana embarked on a long-term campaign to educate first-year students about some of the myths surrounding normal college drinking. Pitt opened a new student-activity center to provide a robust set of alternative social options.” (Busteed, 2010)

At one small college campus the president took up meeting individually with students that had to seek medical attention due to alcohol consumption. Higdon stated that “I believe our conversations have helped elevate the seriousness of the situation for them and for others” (Higdon, 2011). The goal of his article was to urge university staff and faculty members to start conversations about alcohol on campus and in the classroom in order to encourage students to take responsibilities for their actions. Another way that campuses are using education to deal with alcohol abuse is through AlcoholEdu. Many campuses and organizations are requiring participation in this online alcohol education. The hope is that education about alcohol use will prevent abusive use of the substance. Studies show that it seems to be having a positive impact (Outside the Classroom, 2010).

                 

            Stricter enforcement is another tactic that colleges and universities are embracing. At the University of Wisconsin at Stout six alcohol-connected deaths in two years spurred the chancellor to release a memo informing the students of a new approach to combating this problem.

“The university would increase the number of classes held on Fridays in order to discourage Thursday drinking; empower the dean of students to deal more harshly with underage drinking (and its abettors) as well as other alcohol-related offenses; and step up its efforts with local law enforcement to crack down on off-campus house parties, which he considers havens for underage students looking for access to booze.” (Kolowich, 2010)

Many students at the university were outraged by the statement, arguing that drinking was part of the university’s culture. One student also argued that this tactic would lead to people getting caught but not actually dealing with the problem. Apparently the reforms also included harsher punishments for those with higher blood-alcohol levels (Kolowich, 2010). Many universities, along with Stout, are coupling stricter enforcement along with alcohol education to battle the issue. “Frostburg State began extensive outreach with local police and landlords to help curb excessive off-campus partying” (Busteed, 2010) is just one example at how campuses are cracking down.

                Alcohol education and harsher rules are often coupled together in the fight against drinking culture on college campuses. 136 chancellors and presidents of colleges and universities have a different approach to dealing with the issue. They have signed the Amethyst Initiative supporting debate over the current drinking age Click here. Here’s part of their argument:

“Twenty-one is not working.

A culture of dangerous, clandestine “binge-drinking”—often conducted off-campus—has developed.

Alcohol education that mandates abstinence as the only legal option has not resulted in significant constructive behavioral change among our students.

Adults under 21 are deemed capable of voting, signing contracts, serving on juries and enlisting in the military, but are told they are not mature enough to have a beer.

By choosing to use fake IDs, students make ethical compromises that erode respect              for the law.”

This is met with much controversy. Most notable among opponents is MADD. They arguing that these university and college leaders are just avoiding the true responsibility of dealing with the problem.

Resources:

Busteed, B. (2010). High-rish drinking at college? Soon to be a thing of the past. The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Fain, P. (2008). Drinking-age campaign binges on big names, big media. The Chronicle of Higher Education.

http://www.theamethystinitiative.org/

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/04/13/drinking

Higdon, L. (2011). How to make students uncomfortable with drinking. The Chronicle of Higher Education.

http://www.outsidetheclassroom.com/Upload/PDF/AlcoholEdu_EfficacyResearchSummary_2011.pdf

Crystal Ball: Are Behavioral Intervention Teams Asked To Predict The Future?

                A growing trend that is becoming seen as a necessity is behavioral intervention teams or threat assessment teams. The creation of such teams poses two questions.  Are these teams given the expectation of preventing all threatening activity on a campus and community? When do the actions of these teams start to become harmful for those suffering from a mental illness? It has become general consensus at higher education institutions across the nation that the mental health of the students is extremely important and the best preventative measure against threatening situation (Mole). With more and more students attending college that were never able to before (due to scholarship, counseling, and/or medicine), this generation is much more volatile. One “2008 study, conducted by researchers at the National Institutes of Health and titled "Mental Health of College Students and Their Non-College-Attending Peers," found that half of people in the traditional college-age group, ages 18 to 24, met the criteria for a psychiatric disorder.” Taking in all these factors and questions, behavioral interventions teams have a great task outlining their responsibilities.

                In the aftermath of every active shooter situation it is asked if the shooter was displaying any strange behavior. In retrospect at least one person can point to some sort of strange behavior. Behavioral intervention teams are asked to decipher strange behavior before a threatening situation occurs. The shootings in Arizona of Gabrielle Giffords and others was by a young man that had been suspended from a community college because of threatening comments and demeanor (Reiss).   The community college removed him from their environment. Is it their responsibility to protect the community? Can the college force a student to obtain help from mental-health professionals? These questions are the reason why the majority of these teams also include legal staff.  The reality of the situation is that not only are these teams not able to predict every threatening situation that occurs, but their ability to enforce assistant to students is limited. A member of behavioral intervention team at University of Wisconsin’s River Falls campus, Sandi Scott Deux, had this to say about their responsibilities and effectiveness (Wilson):

“We're only human. We're dealing with the same issues that society has. It's no different from trying to stop this in any town or community. Until we can predict human behavior, we're never going to say with 100-percent certainty we can stop this from happening. There are still going to be students who are able to do these kinds of things, who we don't know about or for whom we don't have the right information to proceed in time. Compared to general society, college campuses are still much safer. Are we immune? No.”

                The limit of behavioral intervention teams’ abilities prohibits them from being able to help and/or even diffuse every situation. They have to consider things like privacy laws as well as further damaging someone’s mental health. There is a fear that mandatory mental health screenings of students could turn a minor problem into a major one unnecessarily. These teams face the issue of how to identify those who are at high risk(Han). Most teams have a reporting system that faculty, staff, and students can report to if someone is displaying strange or disturbing behavior (Peterkin). They then gather information on the student and try to look at the whole picture assessing the best way to help and deal with the person. While not a perfect system most school feel with these teams in place campuses are much better off than they were before Virginia Tech occurred (Wilson).

Peterkin, C. (2012) Campus Threat-Assessment Teams Get New Guidance From Mental-Health Groups The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Reiss, B. (2011). Campus Security and the Specter of Mental-Health Profiling. The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Wilson, R. (2009). A Safety Official Discusses How Campuses Handle Threats. The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Mole, B. (2012). Threat-Assessment Teams Face Complex Task of Judging Risk. The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Han, F. (2010). Studies on College Student Psychological Crisis Intervention System. International Journal of Psychological Studies. Vol. 2, No. 1.

Community and the Campus

                Universities around the nation grow larger and larger every year. As a result, defining community on campus is become harder and even more important. Communities on a campus come in a variety of different areas such as student organizations, athletics, and residence halls. One has to wonder what these communities are portraying about the larger campus community. Are they hurting or promoting a true whole community? Another question that faces higher education institutions is in regards to the physical community. Are the gathering places still important for communities that are continually tech savvy?

                In her article, Deborah Taub, points out that the ever growing campus size has made the sense of community lessen at most institutions. She points out the diverse student population as another hurdle. Part-time and commuter students cannot become involved in the campus community in the same manner as the traditional student. Our student populations are no longer small classes of privileged white males and sense of community is not quite as obvious. Taub goes on to share “The Social Change Model” which urges student affairs professionals to see leaders in all students. She then goes on to describe one of the best way to use these leaders to build community on campus is through service-learning. As a pillar of the university service would be a great way to create a common thread throughout the community.

                Magolda takes a look at rituals on campus and how they create a certain perception about the community. He suggests that hundreds of student organizations only show that it is hard to gain a true understanding of issues relevant to entire campus. Throughout the article Magolda uses the ‘voice’ of a student tour guide and how that voice sets up expectations about the campus community. Beginning with a campus tour one is expected to uphold traditions, whether those be roles or expectations, because they are sacred. A sense of normalization is expected on campuses to uphold this tradition and is even romanticized. Are we truly building a community if students are not themselves? Are these traditions ignoring the needs and development of some members of the population?

                Another question about community on campuses today is whether the physical structure of community is still necessary. Scott Carlson points out in his article in The Chronicle that many thought that the library would soon be obsolete with the rise in technology and e-books. The reality is contrary to this statement and one of the biggest reasons is that it helps create a sense of community. “The library, as someone once put it, is one of few places you can go to be alone in public.”  Another testament to this is the millions of dollars being put into state of the art student centers and unions across the country. The Ohio State University just spent $100 million on a new student union and $140 million on a recreation center. Large portions of these projects are being absorbed by the students in their tuition and fees. Why is there not outrage? It creates a place for a sense of community and a point of pride for the community.

                Community is complicated for the growing institutions across the nation. These institutions have to tread carefully and hope that perception does not harm their efforts. There is hope however, as the populations of these institutions continually call for more opportunities to become a part of the larger community.

Sources:

Carlson, S. (February 4, 2013). For making the most of college, it's still location, location, location. The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Magolda, P. M. (2001). WHAT OUR RITUAS TELL US ABOUT COMMUNITY ON CAMPUS. About Campus, 5(6), 2.

Kronholz, J. (2005, May 18). Colleges get building fever; when big-ticket amenities are added to campus unions students often foot the bill. Wall Street Journal. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/399008247?accountid=14588

Deborah J. Taub (1998): Building community on campus: Student affairs professionals as group workers, The Journal for Specialists in Group Work, 23:4, 411-427

Parents: Friends or Foes

                Today’s parents are much more involved in their children’s education than were their own parents. This does not stop when they enter a post-secondary institution and not even in the workforce as Michigan State research found.  This generation of PTA parents is paying for the soaring costs of higher education and wants to be informed and in contact with the institutions in which they see themselves ‘consumers’.  With parents registering for their children’s’ classes and calls to the dean’s office, has it gone too far? Should colleges and universities embrace the heightened family involvement or try to discourage it?

                

                A recent case in Ohio led to a student seeking and gaining a restraining order against her parents. The university has supported the student to the point of providing a scholarship for her last year after her parents pulled their support. The mother of the student is now filing for repayment of the $66,000 she spent on the student’s education. While this case may be extreme it sets up a case that parents want to involved in their children’s education beyond the usually parameters. Are parents, students, or both the ‘customers’ we are serving in higher education? In this case the institution supported the student and it made a statement, whether intended or not, that ‘helicopter’ parents are not supported at the institution.

                Universities and colleges are taking steps to include parents, but also to give their students room to breathe. They are using clever tactics particularly at orientation sessions to set the tone for these relationships. Several universities are creating orientation sessions for parents while the students are registering from class. This gives the student the opportunity to make these decisions by themselves. The University of Vermont is doing something interesting in creating a position of ‘parent bouncers’ to help keep parents away from student sessions during orientation. These students provide information and distraction to the parents, creating that separation from their children. Other universities are also using parent orientation sessions to have hard discussions with parents about letting their children make some of their educational decisions on their own. Parent organizations are also flourishing to help parents feel more connected to the institutions on their own basis and not through their children.

                Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act also greatly play into institution interaction with parents. The purpose of this act was to:

“to assure parents of students, and students themselves if they are over the age of 18 or attending an institution or postsecondary education, access to their education records and to protect such individuals’ rights to privacy by limiting the transferability of their records without their consent.”

While the original intent was more to protect this information from being released to the public it has also been used as a tool to protect the student from the parent. The student now has the ability to sign off on whom can have access to their financial and educational records. This gives administrators information on what information can be released to parents to try to avoid situations like the restraining order in Ohio case.

                Colleges and universities are faced with a decision about the future of family relations. Most institutions are embracing this new level of support from parent and family members. This style of parenting begins as soon as the child is born and not something as professionals in higher education we can change, but only embrace. Though sometimes frustrating it is in the best interest of the student and parent relationship that we work with both for the future development of that student.

Sources:

Connectingg the dots... Education and the Law 

Vol. 20, No. 4, December 2008, 301-316

Family-Friendly FERPA Policies: Affirming Parental Parnerships.

New Directions for Student Services, 2001

"Helicopter Parents"

Encyclopedia of Women in Today's World

Parent Trap

by Eric Wills 

July 22, 2005

The Chronicle of Higher Education

Is A Restraining Order Necessary?

by Peg Streep

January 8, 2013

Psychology Today