G - Abuse of Alcohol on Campus
The excessive use of alcohol is prevalent at Dartmouth, as it is at virtually every college and university in America. Although in the past, such drinking may have been considered part and parcel of the typical college experience, societal awareness has changed drastically in recent years. For example, health concerns about heavy drinking are receiving more attention than ever. And according to the federally funded Higher Education Center for Alcohol and Other Drug Prevention, an estimated 30 college students a year die nationwide in drinking-related incidents.
Although institutions such as the University of Pennsylvania and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have recently been riven by such incidents, Dartmouth has been lucky of late. No student has died in such an incident since 1991. There have, however, been serious injuries, as in 1994, when a student fell out of the window of a fraternity house and spent seven weeks in the hospital.
Beyond these life-and-death issues, institutions across the country face growing issues of legal liability when their students are injured while drinking. The nationwide legal drinking age of 21 ties the hands of many academic institutions; we are obligated to abide by the law, even as the behavior of many of our students challenges it at every turn. In effect, for anyone other than students of legal drinking age, we are in many respects proscribed from actively encouraging an environment where moderate use of alcohol is the norm.
Perceptions of Dartmouth hold that it has an even more serious problem of abusive drinking than the typical college or university. In fact, Dartmouth's own institutional research suggests that many Dartmouth students drink responsibly—while the heavy drinking that occurs is at rates at or slightly above the national average. However, these facts were cold comfort to the committee. A comprehensive review of statistics on drinking at Dartmouth, and of existing policies to minimize abuses, yielded the following observations:
- A key parameter used to gauge heavy drinking on campuses is the rate of so-called "binge drinking." This measurement is interpreted as meaning five drinks at one sitting for a man on at least one occasion within the previous two weeks, and four drinks at one sitting for a woman. According to the Harvard Alcohol Study—an effort to profile drinking on U.S. campuses—the national average rate of binge drinking was 43 percent in 1998. That same year, a Dartmouth survey found that 48 percent of students had engaged in "binge drinking" within the previous two weeks, up from 43 percent in 1997.
- Nationally, a smaller subset of students—approximately 20 percent—is considered to be very heavy "episodic" drinkers. Dartmouth is about average in this category. In 1998, 22 percent of Dartmouth students reported that they had consumed at least ten drinks in one day during the previous two-week period. It is instructive that this is a common drinking profile within the CFS system. Fifty-four percent of CFS male members drank in this fashion. As a result, the CFS male was three times more likely to drink at this level than the next highest group—unaffiliated males, of whom 17 percent reported drinking ten drinks or more in the previous two-week period. Women have much lower rates of very heavy episodic drinking—10 percent of CFS women and 8 percent of unaffiliated women.
- The Harvard Alcohol Study has identified a nationwide trend of campuses bifurcating into students who drink heavily and students who do not drink much, if at all. This split is also evident at Dartmouth. In 1998, for example, more than one in four first-year students said they abstained entirely from alcohol use, while almost two in four said they were heavy drinkers. One-third of all first-year students reported that they had been heavy drinkers even before coming to Dartmouth, which also squares with a national trend of heavy binge drinking in high school.
- Similarly, in Dartmouth's own surveys, students report widely varying attitudes about the importance of alcohol in social life. Many say they are receptive to the idea of creating more social spaces and organizations that are not heavily dependent on consumption of alcohol. For example, the 1997 survey conducted by the Social Life Task Force revealed that 42 percent of students believed it was important to have alcohol available at a party. By contrast, 30 percent of students believed it was not important to have alcohol at a party, and another 27 percent were neutral.
- Heavy drinking takes an academic toll on students. In a recent survey, one in three Dartmouth students reported that alcohol consumption had a negative effect on his or her academic life. One in three reported having missed class due to alcohol use. Students who were CFS members were more likely to report academic difficulty because of alcohol (37 percent) than were unaffiliated students (24 percent). Significantly, those reporting the greatest academic difficulties were "non-leader" members of CFS organizations, half of whom reported academic problems due to alcohol.
- Overall, 14 percent of students reported having injured themselves due to drinking. Among CFS men, 27 percent said they had injured themselves; that number dropped to 17 percent for CFS women and 10 percent for unaffiliated women and men. Almost one in three Dartmouth students reported in 1998 that they had experienced blackouts, or loss of memory, as a result of drinking.
- Half of Dartmouth students vomited at least once in the past year due to excessive alcohol consumption, and more than one in four had done so in a public setting. Twenty-seven percent said they had vomited deliberately to get rid of alcohol in their systems, the practice known as "boot and rally." Half of CFS males reported engaging in this practice, followed by CFS females (24 percent), independent males (22 percent) and independent females (13 percent). In addition, one-fifth of all students reported urinating publicly due to alcohol consumption. Among CFS males, 44 percent reported they had done so at least once in the past year, followed by independent males (28 percent), CFS females (14 percent), and independent females (8 percent).
- Excessive alcohol use plays a major role at Dartmouth in incidents of sexual abuse. According to statistics from the Sexual Abuse Awareness Program office, in roughly 90 percent of incidents reported to Dartmouth officials, one or both parties to the assault said they were intoxicated.
- Dartmouth students spend a considerable amount of money on the purchase of alcohol. Statistics based on Dartmouth's 1998 Risk Behavior Survey suggest that in three terms that year undergraduate students spent approximately $647,000 on alcohol. Male students in fraternity or coed houses spent more than double what sorority members spent on alcohol and more than seven times what independent males and females spent.
Having considered these data and observations, the committee turned to evaluating the track record of alcohol education and prevention at Dartmouth, as well as the enforcement of alcohol-related rules and regulations. Here is what it found:
- Education and prevention. Dartmouth has at times had excellent programs in these areas, some of which have been at the forefront of trends in higher education. At other times, regrettably, these programs have received less emphasis. An important move was increasing resources in July 1999 to enable the hiring of a full-time coordinator for alcohol and drug education.
- Under the coordinator, Margaret Smith, the institution recently launched a "social norms" campaign. This approach is designed to curb excessive alcohol use by reinforcing for students that actual rates of drinking are often substantially lower than they think. Another strategy is the use of "peer counselors" to educate students about excessive alcohol use.
- In discussions with the committee, both Ms. Smith and the College Committee on Alcohol and Other Drugs affirmed that far more could, and should, be done. However, it is well known in the field of alcohol control that few abusers lack education about the dangers of excessive alcohol use—and therefore education alone is not a sufficient strategy.
- Enforcement of rules and regulations. In recent years, alcohol rules on campus have been complicated, poorly enforced by the College and widely ignored by students. There are multiple requirements for registering parties with alcohol and strict keg-use formulas that appear to be circumvented with great regularity. In addition, parties with alcohol have been banned from residence halls, a fact that appears to have driven more students to drink heavily within the CFS system.
- Mixed messages have accompanied enforcement of the existing rules and regulations. One complication has arisen from a matter of College practice: unless a given party in a CFS house has been registered, Safety and Security staff have not been allowed to inspect CFS houses to determine whether they are complying with the rules. The committee concluded that it is not desirable that Dartmouth become a police state. However, we also deemed it unlikely that the problem of excessive alcohol use can be dealt with effectively without stepped-up involvement by Safety and Security staff.
|
