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| Vol. 17, No. 29 | April 30, 1998 |
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| Vol. 17, No. 29 | April 30, 1998 |
Calling it "one of the most important issues facing America's college campuses," U.S. Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. joined University of Delaware President David P. Roselle at a news conference Monday to discuss the problem of student binge drinking.
Referring to UD's successful efforts to curb alcohol abuse on campus, Biden, a 1965 graduate of the University, talked about a national initiative urging colleges and universities across the nation to become more aggressive and to follow UD's lead in efforts to reduce this widespread problem.
Senate Resolution 192-the Collegiate Initiative to Reduce Binge Drinking, introduced last month in the Senate by Biden, outlines six actions to help curb binge drinking. Delaware Senator William V. Roth Jr. is a co-sponsor of the resolution.
All of the components of the initiative are already in place at UD, Biden said.
"What has been done here at Delaware should be replicated throughout the country," Biden said, noting that his resolution resulted from a conversation with Roselle.
Commending Roselle for his leadership on this issue, Biden said, "It is somewhat ironic that I'm the sponsor of this legislation, when the largest and most prestigious university in my state has already put into effect every single thing that the Congress is urging the rest of the colleges in the United States of America to do.
"Being a national leader on a number of issues related to college education-in this case the issue of bing drinking-President Roselle has begun to work to solve the problem before most others even recognize the extent of the problem," Biden said.
Specifically, Biden's resolution calls on universities to
Biden said binge drinking results when a person sets out with the express purpose of getting drunk by drinking a number of drinks in rapid succession. He noted that 17 college students have died nationally this academic year as the result of binge drinking-either from resulting accidents or from literally being poisoned to death.
He cited a study from Harvard University that found that 44 percent of college students are binge drinkers, and almost half of all college freshmen binge drink in the first week of school.
"This affects every college student," Biden said. "Those who live next to drinkers do not get as many peaceful nights as they would like, not as many peaceful moments to study. And, the greater the number of binge drinkers at your school, the greater your chances of being pushed, hit, insulted, assaulted or sexually assaulted," he said.
"Alcohol is involved in most campus rapes, violent crimes, student fights and fraternity hazing accidents, and many victims are not the ones doing the drinking," Biden said.
"Many look at binge drinking as just one part of the campus experience-a rite of passage into adulthood." Biden said. "I don't make any apologies for saying that drinking yourself to death is no right. It's just plain stupid. Binge drinking is no right. It is just plain harmful and dangerous.
"It is time for the culture on college campuses to change before someone else's son or daughter becomes another statistic," Biden said. "And, the change has to begin at the top as it has here at UD."
In his remarks, Roselle said the University and the city of Newark are playing an important part in a major effort to curb high-risk drinking of alcohol among young people.
In October of 1996, the University and Newark community coalition received a $700,000, five-year grant from the American Medical Association and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, as part of a nationwide, $8.6 million program aimed at curbing binge drinking by changing the norms, attitudes, policies and practices affecting drinking on and off college campuses.
The UD/City of Newark Community Coalition was one of a select group of six chosen to participate in the project, largely because of the innovative and cooperative programs already in place to help address the problem.
Roselle referred to this past weekend's alcohol-related incident on Elkton Road, calling it a "vivid example of the kind of aberrant behavior that can result when there is abusive use of alcohol."
He added that when the University accepted the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation grant, several college presidents warned him that it might not be the smart thing to do-and certainly was not something they would do-because it might suggest their institutions had a more serious problem than on other campuses.
Roselle said he rejected that thinking: "Curbing binge drinking-by changing the norms, attitudes, policies and practices that affect it-was something that we should take on," he said.
"By identifying high-risk drinking as a public health issue, the rights of the community take precedence over the behavior of an individual," Roselle said, comparing the effort to curb alcohol abuse to other societal changes that have taken place.
"It was once thought that drunk drivers were a just a part of life and that smokers had the right to smoke anywhere at anytime and blow their smoke upon whomever they chose," he said. "Today, people are much more likely to speak out against drunk drivers and smokers because we know the harm they cause others, and it's not an acceptable price for the rest of us to pay for their behavior."
Also speaking at the news conference was former Newark Mayor Ron Gardner, who Roselle called one of the "heroes" of the effort to curb alcohol abuse. Roselle also introduced newly elected Newark Mayor Hal Goodwin, who has supported the University-community efforts in the past as a City Council member.
Gardner, who is co-chair of the campus-community coalition with student life Vice President Roland Smith, said that in working with the University-Community Caucus of the National League of Cities, he has found "UD and Newark are really ahead of the rest of the country on this particular subject.
"Each time we do a national survey among the towns and cities with universities in them-without exception- at the top of the list of concerns is always alcohol-related problems," Gardner said. "Contrary to what one might hear locally, Newark and UD are recognized across the nation for our efforts and for what we've done."
Also speaking Monday was Stephanie Mellor, a junior who is president of the Resident Student Association. Mellor said student leaders understand the peer pressure students face in regard to drinking and realize that they must represent non-drinkers as well as drinkers. "We're not advocating prohibition; we're advocating safety, and we hope that we can all work together to see that happen," she said.
Smith outlined actions that have been taken to help resolve alcohol-related problems on campus, including the provision of alternative non-alcoholic activities, programming commitments from Greek organizations to reduce use of alcohol in their activities and a re-focusing of Greeks on the traditional values of academic achievement.
Smith also detailed UD's tougher sanctions for violations of the alcohol policy, including fines, parental notification and a "three-strikes-and-you're-out" policy for repeat offenders.
"It's far too soon to declare victory and go home," Smith said, "but there are early indication of success, that we are headed in the right direction."
Those indicators include fewer reported cases of alcohol overdoses and a significant improvement in grade point averages among members of fraternities. Although first-time alcohol-related referrals to the judicial system are up, repeat referrals are down, Smith said.
Newark Police Chief William Hogan praised the University and the community's efforts to cut binge drinking and affirmed Biden's observations that alcohol is directly related to crime.
"The vast majority of criminal activity we have-everything from simple assault to vandalism to disorderly conduct and acquaintance rape-is related to alcohol, again and again," Hogan said.
UD public safety director Lawrence Thornton Jr. said that "changing the culture takes a lot of time, and success is measured in small increments."
One of those measures, he said, is the decrease in the number of students who have had to be transported by Public Safety to the hospital on weekends for alcohol poisoning.
-Beth Thomas
Photo by Jack Buxbaum
