Screams and tears are the most recent memories a mother of a Pennsylvania State University student has of her daughter who died in an alcohol-related accident.
“My daughter fell to her death,” the mother wrote, according to a letter read by PSU President Graham Spanier at the National Press Club Thursday.
Spanier relayed this letter to the audience days after another PSU student almost faced the same fate.
He said the student turned 21 and celebrated by drinking 21 drinks. By the end of the night, the student had a blood alcohol level of .683.
“Obviously, she and her friends didn’t hear the message,” Spanier said.
He said this student’s near-death experience highlights the urgency with which administrators must react to binge drinking, which he called the biggest problem facing colleges today.
PSU will head and launch an anti-drinking campaign Sept. 10. He said the campaign will include full-page advertisements in at least 15 national newspapers and many college publications.
Spanier said these efforts will combat the rash of deaths and near-deaths that have plagued colleges in recent years. Spanier said he learned more than half of students who use alcohol say they drink to get drunk.
But Joe Hadge, the alcohol and drug coordinator and counselor at The College of New Jersey disagreed. He said his department is working on a “misperception campaign,” designed to show students that fewer people are abusing alcohol than they think.
He said focusing on the positive is the first step toward minimizing the drinking problems on campus.
“People want to fit in,” Hadge said. “They want to find a group or be part of a clique. If they think everyone’s drinking, they might too, and the truth is not everyone is drinking.”
Hadge said, according to internal surveys at TCNJ, most TCNJ students drink four drinks or fewer when partying. Like many universities, Hadge implemented the CORE survey, provided by Southern Illinois University, and said he plans to conduct the survey again soon.
Cornell University Health Educator Janis Talbot said she plans to combat alcohol abuse similarly to Hadge. Cornell conducted the CORE survey last fall and found that 62 percent of Cornell students drink zero to three drinks when partying. She said students should know that heavy drinkers are in the minority.
According to the National Household Survey on Drug Abuse released last week, drinking is not the only problem facing college students. Drug use among 18- to 25 year-olds increased in 1998, according to the survey results. Of those young adults surveyed, about 16 percent reported they used an illegal drug in the past month, an increase from 14 percent in 1997.
At GW, two Mitchell Hall students committed drug violations in June, according to University Police. But Associate Director of UPD Anthony Roccogrande said the number of GW students using drugs remains about the same.
Substance abuse advisors at other universities said drinking is the biggest problem, but drug use definitely is an issue on college campuses.
Jeff VanSyckle, the alcohol and drug program coordinator at Binghamton University, said he thinks more students are using marijuana, and that might account for increases. Binghamton also completed the CORE survey and VanSyckle said the results showed about one-quarter of Binghamton students used marijuana in the past year. Talbot said 18 percent of the Cornell students surveyed reported using marijuana in the last 30 days.
According to the national survey, about one-third of the people reported using marijuana at least once in their life. VanSyckle, who is a recovering addict, said marijuana is the substance that threatens a student’s academic career most because he said smoking pot or hash makes people lethargic and lazy.
Candace Miller, manager of the GW Substance Abuse and Prevention Council agreed and added she noticed an increase in the use of “club drugs,” such as ecstasy. Miller said universities need to educate their students because students cannot be sure what they are purchasing.
VanSyckle said, according to the survey, “club drugs” are not as popular at Binghamton, which he said might be a result of Binghamton’s location. Only two to three percent of students surveyed said they used ecstasy in the last year, he said.
VanSyckle said schools need to find new approaches because the traditional prevention strategies are outdated. He said most students have heard educational lectures about drugs and alcohol “every year since the third grade.”
“What we’ve done up to this point is not working,” VanSyckle said.
He said administrators should sponsor late-night activities to prevent students from going out and drinking or using drugs. Talbot said Cornell already is implementing programs with the help of Renaissance, a group dedicated to making social change on campus.
Despite taking different approaches to prevent drug use on campus, educators agreed changes need to occur because the consequences can be grave.
“I know schools that haven’t had a death are lucky,” VanSyckle said.
