Navy looks to UD for guidance

3:31 p.m., Aug. 3, 2005--The University of Delaware’s place as a leader in the battle against high-risk drinking was affirmed earlier this year by U.S. Navy Vice Adm. R.A. Route, the Naval Inspector General.

Because of UD’s continuing efforts to educate students about the adverse effects of alcohol abuse through its decade-long relationship with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and American Medical Association, Route sent a fact-finding delegation from his staff to the campus in early May to learn how best to deal with similar problems among sailors.

“In researching factors that contribute to alcohol abuse and to the impacts of high-risk drinking among our young sailors, it quickly became apparent that the University of Delaware is a leader in implementing environmental and cultural changes” to reduce such behaviors, Route wrote in a letter to UD President David P. Roselle.

The Navy delegation met with John Bishop, UD associate vice president for counseling and student development and professor of individual and family studies, and Tracy Downs, senior health educator with Wellspring, the student wellness program, to learn more about UD’s experience through the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation-funded A Matter of Degree awareness-building project.

Bishop was project director of the initiative at UD, and Downs was project director of the Building Responsibility Coalition (BRC) associated with the grants.

“Greater understanding of the University of Delaware’s experience has given us a clearer basis on which to formulate potential changes to reduce the harmful effects of alcohol in the Navy,” Route wrote.

“We recognize that changing a deeply ingrained societal problem takes research and time,” he added. “The University of Delaware is to be commended for its commitment to establishing community partnerships, for reducing environmental risk factors and initiating long-term cultural changes.”

Bishop said the Navy’s interest in visiting a campus resulted from the fact that training bases, like colleges and universities, have large concentrations of young people, some of them underage, who tend to use alcohol excessively. Also, bases, like colleges and universities, are situated in communities in which alcohol is readily available, often at cut-rate prices.

"We appreciate the Navy's interest in our work and hope that our experiences may be of some use the as Inspector General's Office struggles with some of the alcohol issues we see on our campus and in the community,” Bishop said.

“It is interesting that both organizations see the same paradox: Communities want institutions to take strong actions toward the young people who behave badly due to the excessive use of alcohol but are often quite reluctant to put meaningful controls in place to reduce the easy access that young people have to cheap alcohol," Bishop said.

Article by Neil Thomas

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