Students: UI drinking plan will appeal to some

IOWA CITY - A University of Iowa initiative to curb student drinking has a chance of connecting with some students but will fall on deaf ears with others, according to initial reaction to the plan.

“I don't feel like there's much that can change people's intentions,” said freshman Miranda Drake, 18, of Eden Prairie, Minn. “You come in planning to drink or not.”

Drake did note that popular activities, like Friday After Class dance parties, may be one way to get more students to forgo booze for alcohol-free fun.

“It has to be something more than just sitting in the dorms,” Drake said.

Freshman Kaitlyn Hunsberger, 18, said some students are looking for more activities that don't revolve around drinking. The new plan could appeal to them, the Dixon, Ill., native said.

“For some people who don't like to drink, they'll like having more activities and hearing more about this,” she said. “But a lot of students will probably still go out.”

The four main goals of the UI's Alcohol Harm Reduction Plan unveiled Tuesday are to attract fewer high-risk drinkers, have more students remain low-risk drinkers/abstainers at the UI; have more high-risk drinkers lower their drinking while at the UI; and hold more high-risk drinkers accountable for meeting expectations.

Initiatives to achieve the goals include expanded education to help more UI students to remain or become low-risk drinkers, more alcohol-free activities, screening and intervention programs, house party education, parent interventions and increasing Friday classes.

Vice President for Student Services Tom Rocklin said ways the UI plans to measure success include reducing from 70 percent to 55 percent the number of students who engage in recent high-risk drinking, reducing the average drinks for students per occasion, from 7.43 to 4, and reducing the percent of students who report drinking 10 or more days per month, from 34 percent to 20 percent.

“I don't think that they're goals that we can't achieve,” Rocklin said. “One of the things that figures into this is the fact that we have the 21 ordinance in place now, and we think that makes a difference on its own.”

It's hoped, Rocklin said, that the 21 ordinance passed by voters in November, which keeps people younger than 21 out of Iowa City bars at night, will lead to a cultural change to help with goal No. 1 of the plan: attract more low-risk drinkers and fewer high-risk drinkers to the UI.

“There may have been some students in the past who came here in part because of the easy accessibility of alcohol,” he said. “With that change, I think those students may choose to go somewhere else.”

It's also a message that could be passed to Iowa high school guidance counselors for when they advise applicants, Susan Assouline, with the Alcohol Harm Reduction committee, told the Faculty Senate in presenting the plan Tuesday.

Some of the initiatives mentioned to help meet the goals are already under way this year, Rocklin said, including parent interventions, giving information on how to talk to their children about alcohol use, and holding high-risk drinkers more accountable. The Code of Student Life was changed this year to include off-campus infractions involving drugs, alcohol and violence. Rocklin said for now he doesn't see more stringent punishments beyond that step.

“We never expect to suspend a lot of students,” he said. “The goal is to get into contact with people who are in trouble.”

UI President Sally Mason has seen the plan and is supportive, Rocklin said. What remains to be decided is which components of the plan can be funded now through Rocklin's office and which will have to wait until more funding is available, he said.