Changing I.C.’s alcohol culture

Wallace Loh and Tom Rocklin

University of Iowa President Sally Mason charged us last year to mobilize a campuswide effort - in collaboration with community members - to change the culture of high-risk drinking. The goal is to reduce harm to the safety, health and academic success of students.

We want to provide an update and issue a call for involvement - for more students, faculty and staff to be involved in changing the drinking culture. The future of our students ought not be shortened or impaired by the terrible personal and academic consequences of high-risk drinking.

Excessive consumption has become a rite of passage in the high school and college years. It is heavily influenced by peer pressure. About half of our students arrive at UI with habits of excessive drinking.

Today, the proportion of our students who engage in high-risk drinking is much greater than the national collegiate average. Blood-alcohol concentration of students referred for substance abuse treatment is at an all-time high.

Our students report incidents of physical injury, unwanted or unsafe sexual experiences, property damage, impaired memory of their actions, and diminished academic performance as effects of high-risk drinking. Many students who fail to return after their freshman year have alcohol-related academic problems.

High-risk drinking is everybody's problem. Promoting alcohol safety is everybody's responsibility.

Any strategy for reducing out-of-control consumption requires reducing the demand for and the supply of alcohol.

UI has taken actions to reduce demand. In addition to required online alcohol training, we're offering optional alcohol safety classes to at-risk students. We want to expand them to all freshmen, because education and counseling do change drinking habits.

We've increased the number of Friday classes. We're funding alcohol-free social activities. We're communicating with parents regularly, because parents are still the most importance influence in students' lives.

We also administer sanctions. We suspend students and allow re-

admission only under strict conditions. With advice of counsel, we're revising our policies to extend UI jurisdiction over student misconduct that occurs off-campus.

However, we don't believe in a punitive approach in order to change the larger culture. It's ineffective and impractical.

There is no one solution to this public health challenge. Early intervention, treatment, education, academic expectations, accountability and the involvement of parents and the entire university community are all essential to changing behavior.

The University of Iowa Police Department (UIPD) has expanded police patrols on weekend nights to increase public safety. We've started bystander training to teach appropriate intervention skills in high-risk situations.

The majority of the violations charged by UIPD are filed against non-students. This is why alcohol safety must also involve the larger community.

The Iowa City mayor and city council members are doing their part to reduce the supply of alcohol. They've changed zoning laws to limit the number of alcohol outlets downtown. They've pursued nonrenewal of liquor licenses of bars with excessive underage drinking violations. We salute them for their leadership.

We formed a town/gown Partnership for Alcohol Safety (PAS) co-chaired by the mayor and the provost (www.

alcoholpartnership.org). It includes students and bar owners as well as faculty, staff and community leaders. The emphasis is on communication and collaboration among all stakeholders and making recommendations.

PAS is considering ways to diversify downtown businesses, reduce access to alcohol by underage patrons, promote the legal and responsible consumption of alcohol (including at Hawkeye tailgating) and set benchmarks for accountability and success.

The culture of high-risk drinking evolved over the course of decades. Changing culture and changing behavior will take time. It will take resolve. It will take resources.

Our students deserve an education - and Iowa City residents expect a community - safe from the harm of high-risk drinking.

Wallace Loh is executive vice president and provost at the University of Iowa; Tom Rocklin is interim vice president for Student Services at UI.