The Higher Education Center for Alcohol and Other Drug Prevention CATALYST Winter/Spring 2000 - Volume 6, No. 1 A Publication of the Higher Education Center for Alcohol and Other Drug Prevention FUNDED BY THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION This document is also available in Acrobat and Text formats. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ In this issue: Presidential Profiles An interview with Karen W. Morse, President, Western Washington University Sexual Harassment Case Law Update Implications for College Campuses Illegal Drugs on Campus Research on Women's Drinking Patterns Q & A with Wes Perkins A Message from the Director The Future of Prevention on College Campuses A Mission for the Future Network Awards at the 1999 National Meeting A New Network Regional Coordinator Comes on Board Welcome New Network Members ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Presidential Profiles: Karen W. Morse - Western Washington University by Catherine Meikle Potts "Presidential Profiles" is a new series from the Higher Education Center in which college and university presidents describe their efforts to advance alcohol and other drug prevention efforts on their campuses and in surrounding communities. In the first of the series, Karen W. Morse, Ph.D., president of Western Washington University since 1993, comments on her role as a university president in prevention efforts. Morse served as chair of the Council of Presidents in Washington State in 1995–96. In 1997, she received the Francis P. Garvan–John M. Olin Award, one of the American Chemical Society's highest honors, which recognizes distinguished career contributions to chemistry by women chemists. Q: Many believe that it is very important for college and university presidents to take a visible stand on dangerous drinking and other drug use, yet few presidents are outspoken on this issue. What made you decide to get involved? A: A number of years ago, Pat Fabiano, our campus prevention coordinator, gave me some data from our assessment office showing that students who didn't successfully complete four years at Western reported more problems with alcohol and other drug use than students who did succeed. As a university president, my goal is to provide the very best educational opportunity and environment for success for students to finish a degree. In addition, national data as well as our own data showed that students’ grade point averages were lower the greater the average number of drinks the students had in a week. The data also showed that they missed classes and that drinking interfered with completing homework or studying for a test—all of which relate to academic success. Of course, I was also concerned about the social consequences of drinking, such as relationship problems and unwanted sexual activity. These concerns and the adverse academic consequences really stimulated me to support our efforts here at Western to impact students’ drinking behavior. I must add that we’re not teaching abstinence. We’re teaching responsible drinking. I had newspaper reporters asking: "Why don’t you just tell them no, don’t do it?" The "Just Say No" approach. One kept asking me that. Finally I looked at him and said, "Do you have any teenage children?" He said: "Well, I have a daughter who is 12." And I said: "Why don’t you call me in about six years? And then you can ask yourself that question." You can’t just tell these young people no. You can’t corral them or follow them around. They have to make decisions in their own lives—decisions that will affect what they’re doing now and what they will do and be in the future. We’re simply trying to help them make a decision that will be the best for them and their success here and their success once they leave here. This issue is just something that I think educators should be involved with because it affects the people for whom they’re responsible. Q: What have been some of the alcohol and other drug prevention efforts at Western Washington University? A: I’ve been very lucky as a president because I have individuals like Pat Fabiano and the people in our assessment office at Western who have assisted in our prevention efforts. We take the attitude that one approach is not going to work for everybody. One size doesn’t fit all, so we’ve tailored programs for three different populations of our students. One group is the students who don’t drink at all. We offer substance-free housing and activities and try to normalize their behavior by talking about the large number of substance-free students we have on campus. Our efforts allow them to build their own groups on campus and meet people who interact with them and say, "It’s okay not to drink." The second group is the high-risk drinkers. We offer them an alcohol intervention called risk reduction—a program that has proven to be very, very successful. We also have a social norms program for the third group, the moderate drinkers, which has been successful in changing perceptions of their fellow students’ drinking behavior. Students come to college with the idea that everybody drinks and that it’s really a neat thing to get drunk on weekends or even during the week. We have programs at Western to show how many students don’t drink at all, and for those who do choose to drink, what the actual norm is for the average number of drinks students consume. This approach has really moved our moderate drinkers to be more responsible in their consumption of alcohol. Q: What do you think are some of the most persistent barriers to preventing alcohol- and other drug-related problems on campus? A: A number of things are problematic. One is that we have 18- to 22-year-old students who have the perception that it’s just the thing to do. Because they are young, peer pressure is still a very strong influence on their behavior. And there are these persistent misperceptions by students that alcohol abuse is the norm. A more widespread barrier is that alcohol and drug abuse is a problem throughout our society. College campuses are not immune. We’re not a community unto ourselves. At Western, our almost 12,000 students bring with them the whole spectrum of society’s problems. One of the barriers that campuses need to work more on is getting faculty and staff members to realize the extent of damage that alcohol and other drugs can do to student life and academic performance. By and large, for faculty and staff, these problems weren’t severe when they themselves were students. But college students today seem to be experiencing many more negative consequences as a result of alcohol abuse. For presidents, the barriers to prevention could come from pressure by alumni groups or a campus athletics environment that is conducive to fans partaking of alcohol more heavily than is reasonable and safe. So, some barriers are more general and others are unique to certain campuses. Q: What roles do students play in prevention? A: More than 200 students are involved in a program called Lifestyle Advisors. These students act as health opinion leaders. I talk to these advisors about the importance of the program. These students are not teetotalers, although I’m sure that some are. They can be responsible drinkers or students who have experienced problems. But since their environment is one in which alcohol is being consumed, they can ask key questions about that use. For example, they publicize accurate information to help correct misperceptions of alcohol use on campus in party situations and social gatherings. They appoint themselves as designated drivers. They make sure people eat food at parties. They know what to do in case of an alcohol-related emergency. They’re simply well-informed students who are not afraid to intervene. This program seems to be successful and continues to grow. We assess our program yearly to see what kind of effect it has had on students. Over a three-year period, we have had changes, particularly in two categories. The first change is an increase in perceptual accuracy. We asked students, "How often do you think that students drink?" In 1995, 89 percent said they thought students drank once a week or more. That dropped to 49.5 percent in 1998. That’s a remarkable change in students’ perceptions of drinking behavior. We think and hope that this knowledge also results in students examining their own behavior and saying, "You know, maybe I don’t have to do this." The second area is reduced high-risk drinking. In 1995, the high-risk drinking rate was 34 percent. That rate dropped to 27 percent in 1998. We feel that although we still have a problem, we have made an impact. Q: What other environmentally focused strategies are you using to reduce the problem of students’ high-risk drinking? A: We have revised our alcohol and other drug policy and are making it much more visible this year. We did that through a review by as many groups as we could on campus. We have published it in our faculty and staff newsletter. We’ve talked about the results of the studies. In addition, through our prevention program, we are working with bars, taverns, convenience stores, and grocery stores to restrict marketing and promotion of alcoholic beverages on campus. One way to limit availability is training clerks, servers, bartenders, and bar owners to identify false IDs. Finally, we have formed a campus-community coalition to address high-risk drinking, alcohol abuse, sexual harassment, and a variety of areas in which a partnership between campus and community is going to help solve problems. The community has developed a program that is just getting off the ground to better enforce penalties for inappropriate behavior in apartments. This partnership sends a good message to community members that we are interested in them and that they are interested in us. Some community members had experienced real problems, particularly concerning the behavior of some students, the regulating and policing of the over-consumption of alcohol, and the enforcing of the law. So they were really quite open to talking about the issues and some of the things that we could do, not just in terms of police enforcement, but really in terms of developing conversations on what else needed to be done. The coalition primarily looked at preventing alcohol-related problems in our neighborhoods, intervening swiftly, effectively, and compassionately and keeping people informed through public information, press releases, and regular meetings of the coalition. Q: What type of support is there from faculty and other administrators? How did you build that support? A: Faculty members are probably the least involved in prevention programs. They are, however, involved in our alcohol and other drug policy. The faculty senate reviewed the policy and approved it. I think that this is one of the areas where we could probably do better in helping faculty realize the impact of alcohol and other drugs on the academic progress of the students. Of course, academic performance is what faculty are all about, and that’s what they’re most interested in. We need to figure out how to talk to faculty about these problems so that they’re aware of and can identify students who may be having such problems (through their academic performance) and know where to find help for these students. With administrators we have an excellent situation. Our vice president for student affairs, Dr. Eileen Coughlin, is the author of a book on alcohol and drug prevention. She makes this prevention a priority in her division. Our vice president for business and financial affairs oversees the policy through our central health and safety committee. He works with the staff and employees on campus. Administratively, we have a strong commitment to prevention, probably stronger than most campuses are lucky to have. Q: In fall 1998, you cohosted the signing of a commitment statement by 16 college and university presidents in the state of Washington. How did this "Presidents’ Initiative" get started? A: It seemed to me in talking to my fellow presidents in the baccalaureate institutions that there was interest in doing something about alcohol and other drug problems on our campuses. It just needed someone to take the initiative to develop the statement and set up the meeting. I was willing to do that. It was interesting because one of our sister institutions in the state of Washington had some pretty severe problems. This situation perhaps became a wake-up call to others that they could have a similar problem. To have the presidents make the commitment of supporting alcohol abuse prevention programs was, I felt, at least a step and would give the people on their campus encouragement. And so it was simply a matter of organizing it. I haven’t followed up on what my fellow presidents are doing. I do know that we have hosted meetings here at Western where representatives of the health and wellness programs from the different institutions—public, private, and community colleges—have come together to talk about issues and programs. We now have a federal grant in a partnership with the University of Washington, Western, and the Evergreen State College to continue and enhance our alcohol abuse prevention programs. It’s just the kind of action that I had hoped the presidential initiative might encourage. Q: What advice would you give to other academic leaders about becoming more involved? A: Presidents could make it a point to get to know their health and wellness program leaders and their prevention people. Presidents should become acquainted with the academic and psychological damage that alcohol and other drugs can cause. They need to look at how to deal with the pressure of outside forces like alumni and sports contracts in such a way that those relationships aren’t damaged but that they are sent a message. Presidents can really inform themselves and make sure that they support programs and talk about responsible drinking. We’ve seen the tragedies that have occurred throughout the nation. I believe that every president, including myself, thinks, "There but for the grace of God go I." In spite of all our efforts—and I think that we have a terrific program at Western—some students will drink too much, and some of them are going to be consumed by it. We’re going to lose some students, one way or another. We have a responsibility as presidents to face up to that and say, yes, we need to be involved and our campus needs to be involved. It doesn’t have to be a self-righteous abstinence campaign. It can simply be a responsible, compassionate, and well-thought-out approach. Catherine Meikle Potts is a former research and development associate at the Higher Education Center for Alcohol and Other Drug Prevention. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Sexual Harassment Case Law Update: Implications for College Campuses by Joel C. Epstein In Davis v. Monroe County Board of Education, the U.S. Supreme Court decided an important case about sexual harassment by one student against another. In May 1999, the nation’s highest court ruled 5-4 that schools and colleges that receive federal funds may be liable for monetary damages under Title IX if students are victims of "severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive" harassment that interferes substantially with their education and that officials knew about and had the authority to stop but did not. The Court’s decision confirmed the position of the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) that a school’s failure to appropriately respond to student-on-student harassment of which it is aware is a violation of Title IX. Title IX bars sex discrimination at educational institutions that receive federal financial assistance. The Court’s ruling indicates that schools have a responsibility to provide an environment where such harassment is not tolerated. Davis involved a fifth-grader at a Georgia elementary school who was harassed and sexually abused by a male classmate over a five-month period during the 1992–93 school year. The girl’s mother sued the school board and its officials, who she said were notified about each incident but did not take sufficient action to stop the harassment. The boy involved pleaded guilty to sexual battery after the mother brought the case to the attention of the county sheriff. In its ruling, the Supreme Court reversed a 1998 ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit that the federal sex discrimination law, Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, does not apply to student-on-student harassment. The Davis case makes clear that institutions can be required to pay damages under Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, which prohibits sex discrimination in federally supported education, if they turn their backs when students harass one another sexually. Advocates for sexual harassment victims see the Davis ruling extending the Court’s thinking in Franklin v. Gwinnett County Public Schools, a 1992 case in which the Court held that monetary damages for sexual harassment were available under Title IX. While the Court in Franklin made clear that damages were available under Title IX, some lower courts concluded that the decision did not apply to cases of student-on-student harassment because Franklin involved a teacher’s harassment of a student. The Davis decision clarifies for the lower courts that monetary damages may also be available in cases of student-on-student sexual harassment. Writing for the Court’s majority in Davis, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor said that the ruling applied to all levels of education, including higher education. "Recipients of federal funds may be liable for monetary damages for ‘subject[ing]’ their students to discrimination where the recipient is deliberately indifferent to known acts of student-on-student sexual harassment and the harasser is under the school’s disciplinary authority," she said. But Justice O’Connor’s opinion also presented what she called "flexible" guidelines for schools and colleges to follow: "A university might not, for example, be expected to exercise the same degree of control over its students that a grade school would enjoy." Justice O’Connor also noted that the behavior for which school and college officials could be held liable for monetary damages must "be serious enough to have the systemic effect of denying the victim equal access to an educational program or activity." According to Verna L. Williams, vice president and director of educational opportunities at the National Women’s Law Center, the decision makes clear that college officials may not look the other way when presented with allegations of student-on-student sexual harassment. In an interview in The Chronicle of Higher Education following the May 24 Court decision, Williams, who argued before the Court for such an interpretation, said: "This sets the record straight, once and for all, that institutions do have an obligation to respond to students’ complaints." The view that the Davis case might open the floodgates by making the federal courts the "final arbiters of school policy and of almost every disagreement between students," was taken up by Justice Anthony M. Kennedy in his dissenting opinion for the Court’s minority. "We can be assured that like suits will follow—suits, which in cost and number, will impose serious financial burdens on local school districts, the taxpayers who support them, and the children they serve." Countering the concern that Davis opens the door to trivial suits, the Court’s majority ruled that only misconduct that is so severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive that it undermines a student’s educational experience violates Title IX. Teasing and bullying, for example, would not meet that threshold. Whatever the actual impact on litigation, according to sexual harassment litigation expert Phillip J. Trobaugh, Esq., of the Minneapolis law firm of Mansfield, Tanick & Cohen, the decision will probably force colleges to undertake broad-ranging investigations of sexual harassment allegations to respond to students’ complaints and to protect themselves from liability. Others predict that the decision will lead colleges and universities to settle, rather than litigate, more lawsuits brought against schools by students alleging sexual harassment. According to Robert Bickel, an expert in college and university law and a professor at the Stetson University College of Law, the issue presented by the Supreme Court in Davis—of whether an institution was "deliberately indifferent" or "unreasonable given the known circumstances"—will be central to the litigation of sexual harassment cases. As a result, Bickel advises schools to think through how they would respond to allegations of harassment before they receive a complaint. In a similar vein, in a June 1999 opinion piece in The Chronicle of Higher Education, Verna Williams of the National Women’s Law Center calls the Davis case "a wake-up call to the nation’s educational institutions—elementary, secondary, and postsecondary alike—to make sure that they take seriously complaints about a student’s sexual harassment by a peer." And regardless of actual litigation for monetary damages, OCR requires schools to immediately and appropriately respond to student-on-student harassment as a condition of their receipt of federal financial assistance. Secretary Riley made clear in a January 28, 1999, letter to college and university presidents that these obligations have not been changed or diminished by the Court’s decision in Gebser v. Lago Vista—a decision that preceded Davis, in which the Court first announced the standards that apply to Title IX sexual harassment claims for monetary damages. What can college and university administrators do to ensure that invidious sexual harassment not take place on their campus? For starters, administrators should follow the requirements of Title IX set out by OCR, which issued policy guidance on sexual harassment in March 1997. A copy of the guidance can be found on OCR’s Web site at www.ed.gov/offices/OCR/ocrprod.html. These re-quirements apply to all recipients of federal funds: * Develop and put into effect a policy prohibiting sex discrimination. A strong policy and effective procedures for reporting and investigating harass- ment are essential to preventing harassment and help ensure that a school’s response will be appro- priate when harassment occurs. Too often, such policies are hard to understand and little known. Colleges and universities should examine whether the policy is written in plain language, whether it is it available in languages other than English, and whether students even know that the policy exists. They should also examine whether their policies are effective. For example, do they help students to understand the meaning of sexual harassment and to understand the ways to report it? * Investigate complaints of harassment. When a student files a formal complaint, officials should look into the allegations. Doing so is appropriate even when a student does not file a formal com- plaint, but informally tells an adviser that harassment has occurred. In such cases, investiga- tions can help the institution uncover continuing problems such as repeat harassers. Institutions should investigate each complaint immediately to determine what happened and to identify the appropriate steps to resolve the situation. The par- ticulars of each investigation will vary from case to case, but each investigation should be prompt, thorough, and fair to all parties involved (to pro- tect the integrity of the institution’s process). * If harassment is found to have occurred, take action to resolve the complaint. Disciplinary action should match the severity of the conduct. For example, it may be appropriate to address less serious forms of harassment by warning and counseling the harasser. If harassment is found to be continuing, administrators should take steps to stop it immediately. The institution must take steps to address the needs of students who have been harassed, ensuring that they are not subjected to retaliation, and may need to take steps such as reimbursing them for counseling. Finally, schools may want to examine their campus culture and undertake a comprehensive environmental approach to change the social atmosphere if it is found to be contributing to the problem. Joel C. Epstein, J.D., an attorney, is director of special projects at the Higher Education Center for Alcohol and Other Drug Prevention. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Illegal Drugs on Campus When a student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) died of a drug overdose last summer, police discovered that the dormitory room where his body was found was the center of a campus drug operation. The room contained stashes of LSD, marijuana, mushrooms, and amphetamines, along with a canister of nitrous oxide that the student had been inhaling in search of a high. The student’s death serves as a reminder that alcohol is not the only drug problem on U.S. campuses. Illegal drugs have circulated in the shadows on and around our campuses for many years, but only in the last two decades has the rise and fall in use been charted. The annual Monitoring the Future (MTF) studies by the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research show that the use of illegal drugs by college students declined during the 1980s but began creeping up again after 1990. The use of illicit drugs—mainly marijuana—rose by nearly 5 percent among college students between 1991 and 1997, according to the MTF surveys. In 1997, one out of three students reported that he or she had smoked pot during the previous year, and about one out of five said he or she had done so in the previous 30 days. A rising trend in drug use in campus populations also is reflected in the crime reports that colleges are required by federal law to disclose each year. The most recent reports, for 1997, show there were 7,897 arrests for drug violations at the 483 four-year colleges and universities that reported crime data. The 1997 increase represents a 7.6 percent rise over figures for 1996, while the 1996 totals were 5 percent higher than those for 1995. Campus safety officials say the crime reports should be taken with a "grain of salt" as a measure of increasing drug use on and around a campus. The report results may reflect tougher enforcement policies and adjustments in reporting methods as much as an actual increase in use. According to an article published in the May 1999 issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education, the University of Oregon reported the largest increase in drug arrests in 1997—a jump from 21 in 1996 to 106 in 1997. The university explained, however, that until 1997 it had been classifying many citations of students for drug infractions as "violations" and not as arrests. When the university reclassified the violations as arrests in order to be consistent with reporting practices around the country, it experienced a big increase in its statistics. The University of California at Berkeley reported 179 drug arrests in 1997, the largest number for any institution. Campus police told the Chronicle that in 1997 they stepped up patrols in the People’s Park near the Berkeley campus, an area where drug dealing is commonplace. The 40 drug arrests in People’s Park in 1997 went into the UC Berkeley crime statistics even though few of them involved Berkeley students, the police said. Cheryl Presley, Ph.D., co-director of the Core Institute at Southern Illinois University, believes the campus surveys on alcohol and other drug use deserve a closer look than many colleges and universities are willing to give them. While it is obvious that high-risk drinking involves more students than smoking pot or using other illegal drugs, she thinks it is a mistake to focus on alcohol alone in campus prevention strategies. "The people who are doing the most damage on campuses are the ones who are using marijuana and drinking, too," she says. While students who drink are 1.8 times more likely to experience physical violence than students who don’t drink, students who drink and also use marijuana are 3.6 times more likely to experience violence, says Presley. Students who use additional drugs along with alcohol and marijuana are 4 times more likely as alcohol-only users to report injuries. This pattern also prevails in cases of sexual violence. Students who use alcohol are 2.3 times more likely to report being a victim of unwanted sexual intercourse than those who neither drink nor use drugs. The risk is 4.7 times greater for those who use alcohol and marijuana, and 6.6 times greater for those who use alcohol, marijuana, and another drug. There is a growing awareness in higher education of a nexus between alcohol and other drug use and campus athletics programs. Last year the Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia Univer-sity (CASA) set up a commission to explore the subject. Headed by the Rev. Edward A. Malloy, president of the University of Notre Dame, the National Commission on Substance Abuse and Sports has been inviting testimony from educators, coaches, students, and others and is expected to issue a report and recommendations by September 2000. According to Joseph Califano, president of CASA, the commission will produce "the first comprehensive analysis of substance abuse and sports in America." The group is concerned with performance-enhancing drugs as well as alcohol, tobacco, and illegal drugs. "The star athlete has become the ultimate American hero, a role model for youth," says Califano. "When these men and women athletes abuse drugs and alcohol, they send a message to our kids that such behavior is acceptable, even admirable." On the more distant horizon, there are signs that campus drug problems could become less pressing in the first decade of the new century. According to Monitoring the Future studies, drug use among teenagers may have peaked in 1996. Those entering college in the year 2000 and beyond may have different attitudes toward drugs than have their big brothers and sisters. "We seem to be in the middle of a gradual turnaround in young people’s use of illicit drugs, as well as alcohol," says Lloyd Johnston, Ph.D., director of the Monitoring the Future studies. "This turnaround may be due in part to more young people getting to observe adverse consequences of drug use firsthand as the number of users has risen. It may also be due, in part, to more attention being paid to the drug issue by a number of sectors of society, including community groups, parents, government, and the media. One also hears and sees fewer performers in the music industry singing the praises of drugs than was true in the early ’90s, which also could make a real difference for teenagers." ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Research on Women’s Drinking Patterns: Q&A with Wes Perkins H. Wesley Perkins, Ph.D., is a professor of sociology at Hobart and William Smith Colleges in Geneva, New York. He has conducted extensive research over the last 15 years on alcohol and other drug problems among college students and young adults, with a focus on peer misperceptions of alcohol and other drug norms, proactive prevention strategies, gender-related aspects of drug use, and stress and drinking. In 1997, he received the faculty prize for outstanding service to the college community, which honored his work to reduce alcohol abuse among students. He also received the 1999 Network Outstanding Service Award (see page 9). Perkins has served on the Review Group for the U.S. Department of Education’s Higher Education Center for Alcohol and Other Drug Prevention. Q: Some say that as women gain equality with men, college women are starting to drink more like their male classmates. What have you found in your research on the drinking behavior of college students? A: As a general proposition, that’s not true. Women are not drinking more like men. In fact, there are only a few indicators for which we might make that argument. For example, the frequency of drinking by women has increased over time, so that women seem to be a little closer to men on measures such as how often they drink. But if we look at all the other kinds of measures—amounts they consume, high-risk, episodic drinking—or what has been called "binge drinking"—those measures do not show any closing of the gap between the drinking behavior of men and women. Actually, the only major pattern of convergence we see between men and women is in illicit drug use—not because women are starting to use drugs more like men, but because drug use in general is decreasing. Because men were using more drugs to begin with, in an ironic way, men are becoming more like women in terms of drug use. Q: Some critics of the marketing tactics of the alcohol beverage industry say that, in order to protect the market, it has aggressively targeted women. Do you think that marketing has had any influence on the drinking behavior of women? A: It may play some role in the frequency with which women drink. But I think the main influence on that frequency is that it’s becoming more socially acceptable for women to drink in public than it used to be. It has not, however, become more socially acceptable for women to drink heavily. The differences in the drinking behavior of men and women have to do with negative consequences. Some people have said women are experiencing more negative consequences today from drinking than they used to. But based on available research, I suggest that’s not the case. Rather, we are paying more attention to the kinds of consequences that women are more likely to experience. Historically, we focused almost exclusively on the negative consequences of heavy alcohol consumption in public, which had to do with legal infractions and other things that, in general, involve men more than women. For the most part, society still allows men to act more deviantly in public than women. Therefore, men are much more likely to be involved in property damage, alcohol-impaired driving, and fights and altercations. They are more likely to hurt other people and so forth. In terms of consequences to oneself, such as academic problems, women experience those more often than hurting others. As for the most personal kinds of problems, such as blackouts, memory loss, nausea, hangovers, vomiting, and thoughts about committing suicide, college women and men experience those equally. Nevertheless, there’s no evidence to suggest that those problems have increased—we’re just paying more attention to them. Q: Do you believe that differences in drinking levels and the kinds of problems between women and men dictate the need for gender-specific prevention? A: We need to pay attention to the biological differences. The traditional view is that people who drink at the same levels are likely to experience similar problems. But we’ve known for a long time that women become intoxicated after fewer drinks than men do. This difference is due to three major reasons. First, women have a lower average body weight than men, so their blood-alcohol level per drink is higher. Second, the fat-to-water ratio for women is higher than it is for men, which means that alcohol concentrations in the water portion are going to be higher. People are less aware of the third difference, which is that women metabolize alcohol less efficiently than men do. They have less of the stomach enzyme that begins breaking down the alcohol before it reaches the liver. Taking those things together, on average it’s much easier for a woman to get intoxicated by consuming the same number of drinks as her male companion. We need to take that difference into account in prevention, education, and measurements of risk levels. We also need to pay attention to the different contexts in which women drink, especially if they drink heavily. A man who drinks heavily is almost always drinking with male peers. The motivation to drink heavily among college men is often a peer-bonding behavior influenced by a misperception that "that’s what most males do." In fact, most college men do not drink heavily, but some men do follow that imaginary social norm to pursue their gender identity. Thus, he ends up drinking heavily with a small group of predominantly male heavy drinkers. On the down side, he has a lot of male friends egging him on. But he also has a number of male friends there to pick him up and, to some extent, protect him from walking out in front of a car or from falling down the stairs. At least his friends can get him to the hospital if need be. He is within a group that often will provide some kinds of protection for him, albeit weak ones. A woman who drinks very heavily has a different set of choices. One is to drink alone, because it’s still not socially acceptable for a woman to drink heavily. Drinking in private has its own set of risks. She could overdose, with no one there to take her to the hospital; she could also choke on her own vomit. These risks are to her own health. But if she opts to drink with a group, it’s likely to be predominantly with heavily drinking males. When there are four men to just one of her, she risks acquaintance rape or unplanned sex. For her, the negative consequences of heavy drinking are much different from those for a man. Q: Much of your research has focused on social norms and their impact on drinking behavior. Have you found any differential effect of social norms campaigns between men and women in terms of changes in drinking behavior? A: Sometimes women may actually misperceive the norms more than men do for drinking in general. Clearly, the perception of women’s drinking, by both men and women, is that women drink much less than men. But while the stereotype about men’s drinking is more skewed and more misperceived than the stereotype of women’s drinking, women are equally carriers of the misperception and pass it on in the campus community as much as men do. Stress is one reason that many students drink. But they also say they drink for all kinds of other reasons. We have developed this notion that drinking to cope and drinking for stress are particularly dangerous, but so are social drinking, drinking to fulfill social pressure, participating in drinking games, and drinking to be like one of the crowd. On the surface there’s no reason to think that drinking to cope with stress is more dangerous than drinking for any other reason—students have all kinds of reasons for drinking. But I have found that women, from their early college years to their transition out of college, disproportionately report drinking to cope with stress. As for who experiences the negative consequences of drinking the most, for men it’s not necessarily those who say they are drinking to cope with stress—it is more often those who drink for social reasons. Typically, the men who drink for social reasons experience the most negative consequences. However, college women who say they drink for stress-motivated reasons experience as many negative consequences as women who drink for other reasons. But as women transition out of college, those who drink to cope with stress experience even more negative consequences than do other women. That’s a pattern in men as well—drinking for stress-related reasons increasingly becomes the most problematic. But men start on that track later in life. Women get on the stress-coping drinking track earlier than men do and start experiencing the negative consequences of it earlier than men do. Q: Given what we do know about these gender differences and drinking, what would be your best advice to a campus on how to respond to calls for taking gender differences into account in prevention? A: We ought to take advantage of the larger academic community of the campus in terms of academic and cocurricular programs. Campuses are interested in gender now and have been increasingly so in recent years. Many programs involve a focus on gender, such as gender studies and faculty lectures and guest speakers on gender issues. Unfortunately, very little of that interest has been channeled so far into substance abuse. That is still seen as a male concern. Most of the focus has been on the areas of occupations, family, and children—all of which are important issues—or equity in other areas. But one of the fundamental issues with regard to substance use is the gender divide and how it’s experienced. We need to motivate academic communities, deans, and faculties to channel some of the interest, energy, and funds that are going into gender-related topics on campus to the issue of substance abuse. Campuses should acknowledge that gender sameness and differences exist in alcohol and other drug prevention—just like we find in a lot of other social and political areas—and work from that perspective rather than the assumption that there simply are fundamental differences. The truth is that there are some clear differences and some clear similarities. But we’ve got to start from the perspective that we are open to both possibilities. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ A Message from the Director: The Future of Prevention on College Campuses by William DeJong At a Town Meeting at the 1999 National Meeting on Alcohol, Other Drug, and Violence Prevention, panelists David Anderson, Ph.D., Michael Klitzner, Ph.D., and I were asked what the field of campus-based alcohol and other drug (AOD) prevention would be like 15 years from now. What a stimulating question! In 2015, my daughter Meg will be a senior in college, and my son, Will, will be a sophomore. What will their college experience be like? First, I think that college faculty will continue to increase their focus on their educational mission, as opposed to research. Faced with spiraling costs, students and their parents will demand it. This is good news for prevention. (It also means no interdisciplinary major in Pokemon Studies, which may disappoint my kids.) Second, when considering which school to attend, prospective students will assign great importance to selecting a campus environment that discourages AOD use and provides for their safety. In promotional materials, admissions offices will highlight what programs and policies their school has in place to support the majority of students who do not drink irresponsibly or use other drugs. Third, college administrators will accept the need for a permanent AOD task force that monitors and seeks to change the campus environment in which students make decisions about substance use. Administrators will recognize that all aspects of college life—everything from the school’s promotional brochures through graduation exercises—need to be considered when addressing this problem. Students will be full-fledged members of their campus task force. Fourth, town-gown collaboration on this issue will be routine. College officials and local community leaders will reach out to local bar, tavern, and restaurant owners to develop cooperative agreements to stem underage sales, promote responsible beverage service, and eliminate advertising that promotes heavy drinking. Fifth, all fraternities and sororities will be reconstituted to promote fellowship, scholarship, and community service. A variety of forces will push this change—growing community intolerance for illegal and destructive behavior of some students, rising insurance costs due to legal liability, and a strong desire for reform within fraternities and sororities themselves. Finally, college officials will invest the resources necessary to identify and refer all students needing help with substance abuse problems. As part of orientation week, all first-year and transfer students will be screened, and those in need will be counseled about their drinking and other drug use. Obviously, I don’t know the future, but these are reasonable predictions based on current trends. For my children’s sake, I hope I’m right. William DeJong, Ph.D., is the director of the Higher Education Center for Alcohol and Other Drug Prevention. Mark Your Calendars! The U.S. Department of Education’s 14th Annual National Meeting on Alcohol, Other Drug, and Violence Prevention in Higher Education Saturday to Tuesday, October 14–17, 2000 in Pittsburgh, PA Check the Higher Education Center’s Web site for details at www.edc.org/hec/. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ A Mission for the Future The Network has new principles to guide it into the 21st century. At the fall 1999 National Meeting, the Network regional coordinators adopted the following mission statement, vision statement, and goals. Mission Statement The Network is the national organization that proactively addresses the issues of alcohol, other drug, and violence prevention in order to promote healthy campus environments through self-regulatory initiatives, information dissemination, and technical assistance. The Network serves as a liaison between the U.S. Department of Education and member institutions, as well as other higher education professional organizations. Member institutions encourage and enhance local, state, regional, and national initiatives through a commitment to shared standards for policy development, educational strategies, enforcement, evaluation, and community collaboration. Vision Statement The Network is recognized as the preeminent organization of campus-based leaders within higher education—addressing the issues of alcohol, other drug, and violence prevention. Goals * Promote the Network and its standards nationally and regionally. * Provide expertise to appropriate organizations and agencies regarding issues of alcohol, other drug, and violence prevention in higher education. * Sustain communication and collaboration with national, regional, state, and local stakeholders. * Be accountable to Network sponsors and con- stituents through active evaluation and self- assessment. * Maintain viability by developing strategies for additional resources, membership recruitment and retention, and national forums to exchange ideas and information. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Network Awards at the 1999 National Meeting To recognize individuals who have contributed to alcohol, other drug, and violence prevention in higher education, the Network has established two annual awards. Carole Middlebrooks, chair of the Network Executive Committee, presented the 1999 awards at the National Meeting for Alcohol, Other Drug, and Violence Prevention in Higher Education. The Visionary Award was created to recognize individuals who have contributed significantly to progress in higher education alcohol and other drug prevention and awareness. Awardees can be from an educational, legislative, or public and/or private organizational setting. The work of an awardee in advocating drug prevention will have led to substantive changes in how higher education addresses alcohol and other drug prevention strategies. The 1999 Visionary Award went to U.S. Senator Robert C. Byrd (D-West Virginia) for his work in curbing alcohol use by the nation’s youth. In 1995, Senator Bryd authored the so-called "zero tolerance" legislation that makes drivers 20 years old and younger who register blood-alcohol levels as low as .02 percent subject to state-imposed alcohol-impaired driving sanctions. (Levels for those 21 and older range from .08 to .10). He also established the National Recognitions Awards Program (NRAP) to identify and provide models of alcohol and other drug prevention and education programs in higher education. At Senator Byrd’s urging, Congress appropriated $750,000 for NRAP in fiscal year 1999 and $850,000 for continuation of the program in fiscal year 2000. The second award, the Outstanding Service Award, recognizes a higher education alcohol and other drug prevention professional who has made an outstanding contribution to the field. The following criteria are considered in selecting the awardee: * Displays integrity, stature, and demonstrated achievement and innovation on his or her campus, state, or region that is recognized by students, faculty, and staff. * Provides service beyond the expectations of the nomi- nee’s position on campus and in the community. * Exhibits qualities and values consistent with the mission of the Network. * Has made a significant contribution to the growth and development of alcohol and other drug prevention strategies across higher education settings. The 1999 Outstanding Service Award went to researchers H. Wesley Perkins, Ph.D., and Alan Berkowitz, Ph.D., for their seminal research on how students’ misperception of the drinking norms of their peers can influence their own drinking behavior. Their paper "Perceiving the Community Norms of Alcohol Use Among Students: Some Research Implications for Campus Alcohol Education Programming" (International Journal of the Addictions, 1986) helped spur more research and program development in the area of social norming as a prevention approach on campus. That development includes a coordinated attack on misperceptions of student alcohol and other drug use now under way at seven colleges and universities, with the support of federal grants provided under the Safe and Drug-Free Schools and Communities Act (see Catalyst, Summer/Fall 1998, Vol. 4, No. 1). Perkins is a professor of sociology at Hobart and William Smith Colleges in Geneva, New York. He conducts extensive research on alcohol and other drug problems among college students and young adults, with a focus on peer misperceptions of alcohol and other drug norms (see page 6). Berkowitz is an independent consultant who helps colleges, universities, public health agencies, and communities design programs that address health and social justice issues. He divides his time between his consulting practice and part-time appointments at Wheaton College, as student affairs staff development consultant, and as an advisor to the college program at the National Coalition Building Institute. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ A New Network Regional Coordinator Comes on Board The Network welcomes Robert M. Ruday, dean of students at the University of Florida in Tampa, as the new co-coordinator for the Alabama-Florida-Georgia Region. Ruday has been at Tampa since 1991 and has served as dean of students since 1994. Ruday's responsibilities at the University of Tampa include supervision of residence life, student activities, counseling, career services, testing, new student orientation, health center, minority services, and services for students with disabilities. He also works with faculty members on service learning initiatives and is an advisor to the student government, BACCHUS, and the senior class. In addition, Ruday teaches a freshman orientation class. Ruday has been active in the Network for a number of years. Under his direction as the membership chair for Florida, in 1992–93 institutional membership in the state increased by more than 40 percent. Ruday is a former member of the Network Steering Committee and was the editor of the Network newsletter in 1993–94. How to Join the Network To join the Network, the president of your college or university must submit a letter indicating the institution's commitment to implement the Network’s Standards on your campus. Please include the name, address, and phone number of the contact person for the institution. Mail or fax to the following address: The Higher Education Center for Alcohol and Other Drug Prevention Education Development Center, Inc. 55 Chapel Street Newton, MA 02458-1060 Fax: (617) 928-1537 The Network is committed to helping member institutions promote a healthy campus environment by decreasing alcohol and other drug abuse. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Welcome New Network Members * Beaver College, Glenside, Pa. * Carteret Community College, Morehead City, N.C. * Clark State Community College, Springfield, Ohio * Colegio Universitario de Ponce, Ponce, Puerto Rico * DeVry Institute of Technology, Columbus, Ohio * Hastings College, Hastings, Nebr. * Hocking College, Nelsonville, Ohio * Hudson Valley Community College, Troy, N.Y. * Humacao University College, Humacao, Puerto Rico * Instituto Vocacional y Comercial EDIC, Caguas, Puerto Rico * Lourdes College, Sylvania, Ohio * Muskingum Area Technical College, Zanesville, Ohio * National College of Business and Technology, Bayamon, Puerto Rico * Ouachita Technical College, Malvern, Ark. * Ponce Paramedical College, Inc., Ponce, Puerto Rico * Salve Regina University, Newport, R.I. * State University of New York College at Geneseo, Geneseo, N.Y. * Washington State Community College, Marietta, Ohio ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Our Mission The mission of the Higher Education Center for Alcohol and Other Drug Prevention is to assist institutions of higher education in developing alcohol and other drug prevention policies and programs that will foster students’ academic and social development and promote campus and community safety. Get in Touch The Higher Education Center for Alcohol and Other Drug Prevention Education Development Center, Inc. 55 Chapel Street Newton, MA 02458-1060 Website: www.edc.org/hec/ Phone: 800-676-1730 Fax: 617-928-1537 E-mail: HigherEdCtr@edc.org How We Can Help * Training and professional development activities. * Resources, referrals, and consultations. * Publication and dissemination of prevention materials. * Support for the Network of Colleges and Universities This project has been funded at least in part with federal funds from the U.S. Department of Education under contract number ED-99-CO-0094. The content of this publication does not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the U.S. Department of Education nor does mention of trade names, commercial products, or organizations imply endorsement by the U.S. Government. Higher Education Center Training Opportunities The Center’s two-day Team Training event brings together teams from institutions of higher education and their local communities to address alcohol and other drug (AOD) issues on their campus. Team members represent key campus and community systems such as AOD coordinators, senior administrators, faculty, other student service personnel, athletes, public safety/security, student leaders, community representatives, and others. The training provides an opportunity for teams to develop coalition-based action plans. Call the Center to participate in one of the following events. Dates and locations are subject to change, so please check our Web site for up-to-date information. Upcoming Team Trainings Sept. 29, 2000 • Rochester, New York Fall 2000 • Michigan Fall 2000 • Southern California Fall 2000 • Northern California Catalyst is a publication of the Higher Education Center for Alcohol and Other Drug Prevention. Product Development Manager: Karen Zweig Editor: Barbara E. Ryan Production Manager: Anne McAuliffe Graphic Designer: Jeanne Martakos Center Director: William DeJong Staff: Tom Colthurst, Michelle Cook, Laurie Davidson, Beth DiRicco, Joel Epstein, Michael Gilbreath, Theresa Hassen, Andrew Hill, Rob Hylton, Linda Langford, Michelle Maillet, Shirley Marotta, Anne O’Neill, Robyn Priest, Michael Rosati, Helen Stubbs, and Patty Clancy Wilkinson Last Update: July 26, 2000 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [HEC Home]Higher Ed Center -|- About Us -|- Feedback -|- Shortcuts: