David Roselle honored for campus crackdown on alcohol abuse

4:37 p.m., March 10, 2004--UD President David P. Roselle was one of two presidents honored Wednesday, March 10, in Washington, D.C., with the Presidents Leadership Group Award for imposing some of the toughest alcohol abuse policies in the country.

A webcast of the ceremony is available at [www.rwjf.org/news/plga]

The award, presented by the Education Development Center’s Center for College Health and Safety (CCHS), honored Roselle for instituting the first-ever policy in the U.S. to notify parents when students break campus rules, and University of Rhode Island President Robert Carothers, who banned alcohol from all social events on campus, including at fraternities and sororities.

“College administrators can no longer afford to stand by and allow alcohol abuse to destroy lives,” William DeJong, director of CCHS, said. “I commend President Carothers and President Roselle for having the courage to change campus culture and create an environment that is safer for all students.”

As part of the awards presentation, DeJong announced the results of a soon-to-be-published national survey of 32 college campuses, which found that a majority of students support stricter alcohol control policies. The data, which came from the baseline assessment of an ongoing five-year experimental research project, demonstrate that:

90 percent of students want stricter penalties for classmates who are violent when drunk;

72 percent of students support disciplinary action to be taken on those who repeatedly violate campus alcohol policy; and

nearly 60 percent favor sanctions for students who use false IDs to purchase alcohol illegally.

“College presidents should take heart knowing that a majority of students share their concerns about campus safety,” DeJong said. “The bottom line is that today’s college students want something done about out-of-control drinking.”

Alcohol-abuse experts and advocates for limiting student alcohol consumption, including U.S. Sen. Joseph Biden (D-Del.), U.S. Rep Michael Castle (R-Del.) and U.S. Rep. Jim Langevin (D-R.I.), also spoke at the morning event.

According to CCHS, two in five American college students can be classified as heavy drinkers (defined as consuming five or more drinks in a row at least once in the past two weeks). In addition, advocates said that the percentage of students who say they drink “to get drunk” is on the rise.

CCHS established the Presidents Leadership Group (PLG) Awards program in 2002 to annually recognize a college or university president who has taken an active role in addressing alcohol and other drug problems (AOD) on his or her campus and in the larger community. The PLG was established in 1997 to underscore the important role college and university presidents serve in successful AOD prevention efforts on campus and in the larger community. With support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the PLG was formed to bring national attention to campus AOD issues, highlighting concrete ways presidents can serve as effective catalysts for change.

The Center for College Health and Safety is part of the health and human development division of Education Development Center Inc., an internationally known educational research and development organization located in Newton, Mass. CCHS assists colleges and universities in developing, implementing and evaluating prevention policies and programs that address a broad range of health and safety issues at institutions of higher education. The center also conducts research to expand current knowledge about effective strategies to promote health and prevent alcohol abuse, tobacco and drug use, violence and high-risk sexual activity.

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