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Federal grant aids fight against high-risk drinking BOWLING GREEN, O.—Bowling Green State University is among 20 colleges and universities—and the only one in Ohio—to be awarded
a U.S. Department of Education grant aimed at preventing high-risk drinking or violent behavior among college students.
BGSU received the maximum $300,000 award for a two-year project expanding the University’s efforts to reduce student high-risk
drinking.
High-risk drinking is defined as having five or more alcoholic drinks in a sitting more than once in a two-week period. Although
that definition applied for about 56 percent of BGSU students surveyed in a biennial American College Health Association assessment
last fall, the percentage has dropped by 5.6 percent since 2000.
Contributing to the reduction has been what’s called a social norms approach, which has been used since 1997 in an attempt
to change student attitudes and behaviors and the campus social environment. Pointing out that student perception of alcohol
consumption by peers is much higher than reality is an example of the social norms approach, which will remain a primary part
of the overall strategy.
In response to that approach, less frequent high-risk drinkers have indicated they have changed their habits or are considering
doing so, but “those who are the highest-risk drinkers pay little or no attention to the social norm message,” said Dr. Terry
Rentner, an associate professor of journalism at BGSU and director of the new grant project.
Falling into the highest-risk category are first-year students, athletes and members of fraternities and sororities, all of
whom will be targets of the secondary strategies that are key to the project.
Each of those groups will be required to complete AlcoholEdu, an interactive, online prevention program aimed at such populations
of students. Created by Outside The Classroom, a Needham, Mass.-based company, the course combines prevention strategies with
science-based alcohol education in an effort to motivate behavior change; alter unrealistic expectations about the effects
of alcohol; link choices about drinking to academic and personal success, and help students make safer, healthier decisions
about alcohol.
Barbara Hoffman, health promotion coordinator at BGSU’s Wellness Connection and coordinator of the grant project, said support
will be needed from collaborating campus areas—including athletics, Greek affairs and the BGeXperience program—to ensure students
complete AlcoholEdu.
Some fraternities and sororities are requiring the program for their members from the national level, she added, noting that
it assesses students’ behavior before and after they take the course.
The other new strategy in the University’s integrated approach is training of Student Health Service and Wood County Hospital
Emergency Room staff, as well as campus and city police and other BGSU representatives, to deal with alcohol poisoning. Bowling
Green is the first university to receive grant funds to implement National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism guidelines
for health care providers. They will be trained to use the guidelines for engaging students with an alcohol problem and referring
them to a Wellness Connection counselor for help.
“The key is engaging,” said Rentner, also the journalism department chair, whose campaign against high-risk drinking at BGSU
has been backed since 1997 with yearly $25,000 grants from the Ohio Department of Alcohol and Drug Addiction Services. The
University received an additional $76,292 from the U.S. Department of Education in 1999 for what the department deemed one
of seven model programs in the nation.
The new federal award will help BGSU serve as a model for others, too, in terms of the effectiveness of social norming, AlcoholEdu,
and campus and community training, Rentner said.
“Social norms programming in itself is not the magic bullet,” she pointed out, citing the importance of complementary strategies.
Considering the continuing influx of new students, Hoffman added, an effective fight against alcohol abuse on campus requires
workable policy and a coalition with the city. She co-chairs—and Rentner is a member of—the University Committee on Alcohol
and Other Drug Issues, which also includes community representatives.
“It helps when you have a lot of people coming together to discuss the issue,” Hoffman said. “Ultimately, all of this affects
retention (of students at BGSU).”
And progress, said Rentner, “is a slow change, but any health behavior is going to be a slow change.”
(Posted July 28, 2005 )
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