"BE CAREFUL, and here's your BAC card." Congratulations. You've just been armed with what most first years take away from the University's alcohol orientation instruction. During orientation, new students will be presented with many strategies for handling the unique aspects of life on-Grounds, from learning the words to the "Good Ol' Song" to discovering the joys of ISIS. What they will not be given, however, is any sort of comprehensive preparation for the extensive exposure to alcohol that many of them will face should they venture beyond the University's serpentine walls to Rugby Road and other off-Grounds locales where the spirits flow freely.
The University has made a few scattered attempts at alcohol education. According to Patricia Lampkin, vice president for student affairs, these efforts include "the Grounds for Discussion live vignette series for which attendance is expected of all first-year students."
Additionally, "Students also attend required dorm talks related to health and safety during the first week or so of school, and RAs also provide additional programming related to wellness" as well as information regarding the University's alcohol policies. New students will also soon be well acquainted with the Stall Seat Journal and its innumerable tidbits of (sometimes) handy information and be handed their blood alcohol concentration, or BAC, cards.
The problem with these various presentations is that while they are necessary, they are not sufficient. Programs like Grounds for Discussion only touch on alcohol issues quickly and comically, and, in this columnist's experience, when RAs do address alcohol issues directly the focus is almost entirely on the illegality of underage drinking. However, because of the difficulty of enforcing it, that illegality is almost a non-issue on and especially off Grounds.
Despite attempts by the University and student groups to provide sober late night activities, a pervasive drinking culture remains that will eventually draw in many first years who have no experience with alcohol and have received little useful knowledge on the subject from the University. There are groups that provide such information to those who seek them out such as the Center for Alcohol and Substance Education (CASE) and its student arm, the Alcohol & Drug Abuse Prevention Team (ADAPT). But there's the rub.
First year is nothing if not overwhelming, and the thought of attending a training session on responsible drinking is probably the farthest thing from most students' minds as they begin their first semester.
The missing piece in the University's current strategy for addressing alcohol issues is a mandatory comprehensive education on the physiological consequences of alcohol use. The goal here is not so much to stop drinking but to give students a realistic picture of the effects of alcohol and let them make their own choices. In implementing the program, administrators should organize specialty presentations for the first-year dorms, many of which could be run by student groups like ADAPT. Students would be given clear guidelines on the University's policies as well as advice on how to handle alcohol for those who have never drank before. All of this information could then be rehashed in poster campaigns and other programming throughout the year.
Chances are pretty good that most students learned in high school that alcohol makes you drunk and should not be touched until they are of legal drinking age. However, depending on where you're from, an additional portion on responsible drinking may or may not have been part of the high school health syllabus, and that is why the University must step up and provide that information to its incoming students, as most of them will need it fairly soon. The risks and consequences of alcohol use require proper explaining, but presently most students only learn about them while in the midst of their first few hangovers.
Through organizations such as CASE and student groups like ADAPT, the University has the resources to be far more helpful than it has been to incoming students with little knowledge of alcohol. Those resources are already available, but most students won't realize their value until long after peer pressure and the desire to party have given them a rough welcome to the world of alcohol.
If the University wants to have a truly comprehensive approach to drinking, it has to start with prevention education. Arm the students with the knowledge they need -- they can make their own choices from there.
A.J. Kornblith is a Cavalier Daily columnist. He can be reached at akornblith@cavalierdaily.com.
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