Nationally, eight out of 10 college students drink alcohol. However, there’s a fine line between using and abusing.
Patricia Rutledge, professor of psychology at Allegheny College, will discuss her research on problematic drinking in college settings when the Colloquium Series in Psychological Sciences and Human Behavior returns to Penn State Behrend.
The wild college house party filled with students doing keg stands, playing drinking games and passing out drunk is a familiar scene in pop culture. But is this stereotypical scene the exception or the rule? How much of a problem is binge drinking on college campuses? According to data collected by Jeff Hayes and colleagues from more than 100 college campuses, 56 percent of students don't engage in regular binge drinking. "I think it is important to communicate to students that they are not alone, they are not even in the minority, if they choose not to binge drink," says Hayes. The flipside is that 44 percent of students are binge drinking. For those students, there are often problems.
The first few weeks of college are a critical time in shaping students' drinking habits. Now Penn State researchers have a tailored approach that may help prevent students from becoming heavy drinkers. "Research shows there is a spike in alcohol-related consequences that occur in the first few weeks of the semester, especially with college freshmen," said Michael J. Cleveland, research associate at the Prevention Research Center and the Methodology Center. "If you can buffer that and get beyond that point and safely navigate through that passage, you reduce the risk of later problems occurring."
Restaurants in Germany legally sell alcohol to teenagers after their 16th birthdays and French children drink wine with dinner at an early age, but U.S. parents who follow this relaxed European example, believing it fosters a healthier attitude toward alcohol, should be careful -- it may increase the likelihood that their children binge drink in college. Research conducted by Caitlin Abar, graduate student in human development and family studies and member of Penn State's Prevention Research and Methodology Centers suggested that parents practice a zero-tolerance policy in the home and said that there is no scientific basis to the common belief that prohibiting alcohol turns it into a "forbidden fruit" and encourages abuse. She presented her results at the 2009 meeting of the Society for Prevention Research, Washington, D.C., and they appear in the current issue of Addictive Behaviors.
A team of Penn State students finished fourth in the National Student Advertising Competition district competition that required the students to develop an integrated communications campaign to combat dangerous overconsumption of alcohol by college students.
Dawn Blasko, immediate past chair of the University Faculty Senate, told Penn State's Board of Trustees Friday (May 16) about initiatives undertaken by the Senate in the past year, including action to change the First Year Seminar general education requirement, addressing student binge drinking and establishing a Faculty Senate Trustee Scholarship.
Penn State continuously looks for ways to diminish the misuse of alcohol among its students by pioneering new programs such as AlcoholEdu for College, an online learning module for first-year students throughout the Penn State system, a panel of experts explained Friday (May 16) in a report to the University's Board of Trustees. Those presenting included Gail Hurley, interim vice president for Student Affairs; Margaret Spear, senior director of University Health Services, Linda LaSalle, coordinator of Health Education Services and Linda Higginson, assistant dean for advising in the Division of Undergraduate Studies.
