Campaign looks at choices and consequences

Being “out of it” on a night out has its consequences, and a new awareness campaign on campus—modeled after a board game—encourages students to think about that fact.

“The (Not Just A) Game of College,” sponsored by UD’s Alcohol Policy and Education Council, is designed to make students aware of choices and their consequences, according to council chairperson Tracy Downs, program coordinator for Wellspring, UD’s health education, outreach and counseling program.

Illustrated game pieces, which can be easily stuck on and removed from smooth surfaces, have been distributed during spring semester. Each poses the question “Where do you want to end up after a night out?” with the tagline “Your choices—Your consequences.”

Game pieces were distributed one at a time, with the first showing a contrite student trying to make amends to an angry friend. The message? “In a friend’s room—apologizing for something you did or said.” Another shows a student, head in the toilet, with the message, “In a bathroom—sick after drinking too much.”

Five thousand of each of 11 different soft plastic pieces were distributed in residence halls, student centers, the Student Health Center, the Carpenter Sports Building and other places, Downs says. As each game piece was released, a corresponding ad appeared in the student newspaper, The Review.

At the end of the campaign, posters of the game board were inserted in The Review and a limited number of T-shirts with game piece graphics were made available. The posters also will be distributed to incoming students at DelaWorld this summer.

“The campaign is similar to one we ran a few years ago, the ‘Top 10 Reasons Not to Get Drunk,’” Downs says. “The goal of the campaign is to get students thinking and talking about the not only unpleasant but possibly serious and long-term consequences of drinking irresponsibly that can change their lives.”

The Alcohol Policy and Education Council was formed last year to coordinate campus activities and policies related to substance abuse. It continues the work of the former Building Responsibility Coalition, for which Downs was project director.

The coalition was associated with the decade-long Robert Wood Johnson Foundation grants, which were designed to educate students and the community about the adverse effects of high-risk drinking.

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation grants ended in August 2005, but the University is continuing many of the educational and policy efforts begun as a result of the funding, doing so through the new council.

Studies have shown that the University’s initiatives to address high-risk drinking and to raise student awareness of it as a public health issue have had a positive influence on campus culture. A survey by the Harvard University School of Public Health found significantly fewer UD students drinking alcohol to the point where they miss class, engage in unplanned sex, are in a group that is asked to be less disruptive or attend a party that is shut down because of alcohol problems. At the same time, the data indicate a substantial increase in the number of UD students who recognize the dangers of alcohol poisoning.

John Bishop, the University’s associate vice president for counseling and student development and professor of individual and family studies, says the council’s primary goals are to share information about alcohol and drug issues, to make recommendations to the UD administration about the associated campus policies and to coordinate the campus-wide efforts to provide students with accurate information about alcohol and drug issues.

UD professional representatives to the council have been appointed from such offices as Campus Life, Public Safety, Athletics and Fraternity and Sorority Life. Student representation is invited from student government organizations and campus programming groups.

— Sue Moncure