Search

ARCHIVES
CONTACT US
WORLD NEWS

MU official pushes for tests to curb binge drinking

COLUMBIA, Mo.-It has been 33 years since Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs Charles Schroeder graduated from college, but he still remembers what it was like to be a student.

Schroeder said he took weekend ventures off campus to drink with his friends and partied so much his first semester that he made a 1.75 grade point average.

Schroeder said college students had fewer alcohol problems when he was in college. Binge drinking and drinking on campus were unheard of, and women rarely, if ever, were seen drunk in public, he said.

Schroeder said he realizes college students today, especially those in greek houses, face an "alcohol-centered culture" when they come to the University of Missouri. He and other MU administrators are taking steps to make the college experience as safe as possible for students.

Schroeder took this most recent step Thursday, when he asked the Faculty Council to urge professors to schedule more tests on Fridays.

"According to a study (conducted at the Harvard School of Public Health), many students believe the weekend starts Wednesday night," Schroeder said. "They're getting a three-day academic week for a five-day tuition bill."

The study Schroeder referred to was conducted by Henry Wechsler and his associates. They surveyed 17,000 students on 140 campuses, and the study was published in About Campus, a magazine Schroeder edits.

"The biggest predictor of binge drinking in college is residency in a fraternity or a sorority," Wechsler said in the article. "That's No. 1 by far."

After conducting his study, Wechsler came up with a 12-step program to reduce binge drinking on college campuses, many of which MU has implemented or will implement.

Those steps include the Dry 2000 initiative, the establishment of a parental notification policy for students caught with alcohol on campus and the request for teachers to give more tests later in the week.

As of fall semester 2000, all MU fraternity houses will be alcohol free under the Dry 2000 plan. The MU system is also considering guidelines for a parental notification system.

Steps like those are targeted specifically at binge drinkers, many of whom live in greek houses, Schroeder said.

"I'm not on a crusade," Schroeder said. "But I'm trying to bring a degree of reasonableness to this problem. We're trying to focus on enhancing the greek experience."

Schroeder said MU administrators are not singling out members of greek chapters, but with 70 percent of heavy high school drinkers joining fraternities, there is room to be concerned, he said.

Wechsler's study suggested a college must first study its alcohol culture and determine if it has a problem.

"We accept that cultural reality," Schroeder said. "Within accepting that cultural reality, we work with the ways to deal with it."

Wechsler also suggested all students get involved in the effort to reduce problem drinking on campuses, which Schroeder said MU is doing by giving students the chance to live in residence hall learning communities.

"In the last five years, we have implemented 90 learning communities," he said. "We know that learning communities work."

Despite criticism that the Dry 2000 initiative will only move binge drinking, not cure it, Schroeder said studies show dry housing works while bringing added benefits to the greek system.

Schroeder said research conducted by MU professor Esther Thorson showed that most fraternity drinking occurs in the houses. When the houses go dry, members tend to drink in fewer places, and drinking actually decreases.

"Students in dry housing are much more satisfied with the college experience, the greek experience and the social experience," Schroeder said. He also predicted Dry 2000 will increase fraternity membership.

"We really have not faced much of a decline in our membership," Student Life Director Cathy Scroggs said. "As we have chapters move to an environment where alcohol is not the center of the environment ... we think those organizations will become more attractive to incoming students."

In an attempt to show the extent of MU's drinking problem, Schroeder cited an incident at the beginning of the year in which a MU fraternity pledge was sent to the hospital for alcohol poisoning after his pledge brothers watched him drink most of a bottle of Wild Turkey in 20 minutes.

"Nobody stopped the young man from doing that," Schroeder said. "I believe very strongly that the alcohol-centered culture in the greek system is limiting the potential of the greek system to be the kind of system it has aspired to be."