2008 Woodie Awards
Alcohol awareness classes possibility at PSUC
Robin Levine
Issue date: 11/3/06 Section: News
Originally published: 11/2/06 at 8:35 PM EST
Last update: 11/2/06 at 8:35 PM EST
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If Plattsburgh State University College follows the lead of other colleges in the SUNY system, all first-year students may soon be required to complete an alcohol awareness class.
The programs, AlcoholEdu and Alcohol 101+, are courses that would provide PSUC students with individual risk assessment profiles. The classes would either be taken online or through a CD-ROM.
The assessment profiles would be based on information students would provide about their drinking habits. All responses would be anonymous and would serve to inform students about the effects of alcohol on the body.
The responses would also provide administrators with the information necessary to design better outreach programs for students, PSUC Health Educator Jerimy Blowers said.
"If we know an incoming class is drinking more, we can design programs around that," he said.
These programs, already mandated for all first-year students at colleges such as SUNY Purchase and SUNY Binghamton, are part of a SUNY-wide initiative to change the culture of high-risk drinking on college campuses, wrote SUNY Chancellor John Ryan in his most recent chancellor's column. The column is sent to the media as a press release and is also added on the suny.edu Web site.
High-risk drinking is defined as consuming five or more drinks in a short period of time or drinking with the intent to get drunk. Binge drinking can lead to injury, hangovers and alcohol dependency.
The most effective way to change the culture of high-risk drinking on campuses is to change the preconceived notions incoming students have about college, Blowers said.
"Expectation from the media and things (students) see and hear make (students) think that college and drinking go together," he said.
However, according to a survey done by the college last spring, 20 percent of PSUC students choose not to drink. Those who do, drink an average of four or fewer alcoholic beverages per week, Blowers said.
The online and CD-ROM programs are a way to engage students and provide them with the knowledge to make informed decisions, Blowers said. But some students question the need for such programs.
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