Princeton Weekly Bulletin May 11, 1998
A trustee initiative on alcohol abuse
For more than a year, a special subcommittee of the Trustee Committee on Student Life, Health and Athletics has been assessing the use and abuse of alcohol on campus.
Chaired by Dr. Marsha Levy-Warren '73, the subcommittee gathered pertinent information from Princeton and other universities, and met with the administration's Alcohol Advisory Group, college masters, coaches, eating club officers, members of the Graduate Interclub Council, the director of Public Safety and other relevant University personnel.
At its April 25 meeting, the Board of Trustees thoroughly reviewed the subcommittee's work and agreed with its conclusion that, despite strong efforts by the University over recent years, alcohol abuse continues to be a serious problem on the Princeton campus.
The Trustees also agreed that the problem of alcohol abuse is of sufficient magnitude and urgency that a special initiative is required, and that to be successful it must be undertaken with the active engagement of the Trustees and all other members of the University community. It is the Trustees' strong conviction that there is no single or simple solution to alcohol abuse. Instead, making further progress requires a comprehensive and collaborative effort in which all members of the Princeton community play a role. Further progress can be made, but only if all of us work together.
Therefore, the Trustees call on the entire Princeton University community -- students, faculty, administrators, staff, alumni, parents and others -- to join with them in developing a broad-based action plan that will involve all sectors of the University, with the specific goal of reducing alcohol abuse at Princeton.
Alcohol abuse at Princeton: some background
Alcohol abuse is involved in essentially all serious instances of physical violence and sexual abuse that occur on campus. Alcohol abuse has been the direct cause on this campus of risk of grievous harm, of serious injury and, a number of years ago, of death. These patterns are similar to those at virtually all other colleges and universities.
For many years there have been reports on this campus and in the public press about the growing numbers of "binge drinkers" on college campuses across the United States. Binge drinkers are defined as those who, over a specified two-week period, have had at least five drinks in one sitting. The conclusions of national studies about the seriousness of binge drinking are reflected in the data of recent surveys at Princeton.
Current initiatives
Princeton's current policies on the use and abuse of alcohol were adopted in 1988. (They can be found in the publication Rights, Rules, Responsibilities.) For well over a decade, under two presidents, the University has attempted to come to grips with what is recognized to be a problem of new and disturbing dimensions. Recently, under the direction of the Dean of Student Life and others, a number of effective steps have been taken, and more are planned.
The most important current efforts are:
1. An administrative group (the Alcohol Advisory Group) was formed to oversee the ways in which the University's alcohol policy intersects with programming, prevention and evaluation efforts.
2. Peer advisers (Resident Advisers, Minority Affairs Advisers and Peer Educators) are trained in University alcohol policy and alcohol abuse resources, alcohol emergency management and basic alcohol abuse counseling. The newly established Residential Education Program targets first-year students and is designed to provide information about alcohol use (among other issues) and campus resources.
3. The Student Alcohol Peer Educators (SAPE) offer programs to Resident Advisers, athletes, eating clubs, fraternities and sororities.
4. Liaisons have been formed with the governing boards and officers of the Prospect Street clubs to address issues of alcohol use, liability from such use and planning alternative social activities, and the clubs have taken several encouraging steps, such as instituting a dry period during this year's bicker at some clubs.
5. Graduate College bartenders are trained to respond to signs of intoxication and to deal with alcohol emergencies.
6. Health Services personnel have met with and continue to have discussions with athletic teams to discuss alcohol policies, practices and problems.
7. There is a mandatory Freshman Orientation meeting that demonstrates the connection between alcohol use and sexual harassment and assault.
8. A pilot intervention program in one of the residential colleges, run by a senior member of the Counseling Service, focused on encouraging first-year students to speak up about their discomfort with alcohol use among their peers and social pressures to drink. This program was designed specifically to address the widespread phenomenon of pluralistic ignorance (i.e., the private belief, held by a majority of students, that they are among a minority of students who are less comfortable with alcohol use than are their peers).
9. There are a number of mechanisms in place through Student Life offices to help students at particular risk of alcohol abuse; once identified, these students are referred for evaluation and assistance.
10. During Reunions, alumni classes now impose much greater control on access to alcohol (wristbands, security personnel, etc.), and the University has encouraged the development of activities (such as fireworks) that do not emphasize alcohol and has provided an Alcoholics Anonymous site and other alcohol-free locations.
11. The University is actively engaged in planning the new Frist Campus Center, which many hope will become an attractive social nexus for the community not centered around alcohol.
12. More Friday classes are now being offered than in the recent past, and a faculty committee is considering the further restoration of Friday classes, which many believe would contribute to a reduction in the abusive drinking that can occur when parties begin on Thursday nights for students who do not have classes again until Monday.
A call to further action
For all of the efforts made and progress achieved in some areas, the problem of alcohol abuse remains a serious challenge to our community and substantially more needs to be done. As extensive as they have been, efforts thus far have involved too narrow a segment of the community. This is a responsibility for all members of the community, and the Trustees have identified the following as among those who they hope will make a special effort to assume leadership in addressing these issues:
* in the Office of the Dean of Student Life: the discipline groups (Committee on Discipline, Residential College Disciplinary Board), Health Services, the Department of Athletics, the Residential Education Program Committee and the Office of Religious Life;
* in the Office of the Dean of the College: masters, residential college staffs and student agencies (e.g., safeguards, bartenders);
* the Prospect Street eating clubs, including in particular their student officers and members of their graduate boards;
* the Office of Public Safety;
* the Alumni Council and parents' groups;
* student leaders: Undergraduate Student Government members, class officers, college councils, team captains and officers of student groups;
* student publications, including the Daily Princetonian;
* the offices of Public Affairs and of Communications;
* academic officers and faculty members; and
* the Princeton Alumni Weekly.
The Trustees also concluded that Princeton should continue to take a national leadership role in collaborative efforts with presidents and senior deans of peer institutions and with relevant associations to identify effective approaches to alcohol abuse. Such a collective approach would send an unambiguous message -- both that the seriousness of the problem is widely recognized and that educational institutions intend to go beyond current measures to deal with the causes and consequences of the problem.
A special trustee initiative
The Trustees believe that the University community needs first to acknowledge honestly the depth and scope of the problem of excessive drinking at Princeton, and then to develop a comprehensive campaign to combat it. They are calling upon each member of the community to assume personal responsibility for helping to design and carry out such a campaign, and toward that end are asking each member of the community to answer the following questions:
1. What are you currently doing to curb the misuse of alcohol at Princeton?
2. What other step(s) can you take?
3. What resources do you need to take these additional steps?
4. When will you be able to put these new measures in place?
5. How will you monitor their effectiveness?
Now is the time for action -- action based on a considered plan that enlists the full commitment and involvement of all sectors of the University community. Over the coming months, the Trustees will be actively engaged with all of these sectors to develop and implement specific initiatives. The Trustees will discuss ideas that emerged from their subcommittee, solicit the ideas of others and try to come to consensus about the most effective ways to combat alcohol abuse at Princeton. A comprehensive action plan, deriving from these discussions, will be brought to the board of Trustees for implementation over the next academic year. The board has no doubt that addressing these concerns will improve the health and safety of all who live, work and study at Princeton.
(A more detailed plan for collecting information and responses will be developed over the coming months. In the interim, anyone with questions about this initiative can address them to Levy-Warren; to W. Taylor Reveley III '65, who chairs the Trustee Committee on Student Life, Health and Athletics; to Dean of Student Life Janina Montero, who serves as secretary of the committee; or to Vice President Thomas Wright Jr. '62, who serves as secretary of the board.)