THEY CALL us Wahoos because, as this fish drinks water, we can drink our weight's worth of alcohol. They say the University is the biggest party school on the East Coast. We work hard and play hard. Or so the perception goes.
The reality, though, is different from the perception of drinking at the University. According to the Office of Health Promotion, in a survey of 888 first-year students conducted in the spring of 1999, most University first-year students have healthy attitudes about drinking but perceive that most others do not.
The reality: 36 percent of first-year students abstain from drinking. The perception: 0.2 percent of first-year students abstain from drinking.
Reality: 59 percent of first-year students have zero to four drinks per week. That is, most first years drink in moderation. Perception: Most first year students have five or more drinks per week. And the most common response was that students thought their peers have a whopping ten drinks per week.
The fact is, drinking and partying are so hyped that students believe what they don't even see. Elena Bertolotti, Health Educator and Social Marketing Coordinator for the Office of Health Promotion, said in a personal interview that, "This misperceived notion that everyone is drinking excessively at the University is an invisible source of peer pressure."
It's a vicious cycle. Joe First Year walks on Grounds, prepared to have fun after hearing all about the great parties at the University. So Joe decides he'll drink a little -- everyone does it. Then, after deciding that he likes to drink, he decides to just keep doing it, justifying it with the fact that it's a cultural thing at the University.
It doesn't stop there. Joe's perception fuels Susie First Year's perception that it's okay. Because Joe down the hall does it, and he's pretty normal, everyone here must be drinking. It's a dangerous cycle, only to be stopped by a vast education initiative.
That's the role of the Office of Health Promotion's "The Real Grounds" program. It relieves the intensity of this cycle by reinforcing positive behaviors of those first-year students who may believe that they're in the minority. Instead of using traditional media, the program places posters in the stalls of first-year bathrooms. Sure, it's a bit funny. Of course, nobody is making important decisions about their social lives while carrying out the day's business, but, "the recall rate is phenomenal," said Bertolotti. For such a captive audience, that's understandable.
In addition to the reassuring statistics, the Office of Health Promotion also obtained some frightening ones. For example, 12.5 percent of first-years reported having been sexually assaulted in conjunction with an alcohol-related event. There was even a solid 5 percent who admitted to having sexually assaulted someone after consuming alcohol. Then, there's the finding that 89 percent of all first-year drivers don't drink and drive. The reverse -- that more than one in 10 first-year drivers do -- is fairly frightening.
While the Office of Health Promotion doesn't want to use scare tactics or to emphasize anything but the positive aspects, some of these statistics are genuinely stirring and deserve to be brought to students' attention.
The Office of Health Promotion, nevertheless, has the right idea. Close the gap between perception and reality. Then students won't be tacitly pressured into doing something they otherwise wouldn't do, and they'll stop clinging to an incorrect belief about how others conduct themselves. Then when the next survey is sent out -- a census of all first-year students -- that gap will have tightened. The peer pressure will lose its power, and behavior will adjust accordingly. The result: healthier attitudes about alcohol.
Most of all, this initiative makes people who don't drink feel comfortable. During the first week of school this fall, if you weren't on Rugby, you just didn't have a social life. The posters restore social identity to those who may have felt alienated. They invalidate the lone non-drinker paradigm, and substitute it with an understanding that there are vast numbers of people in the same boat.
There is only harm to be done by allowing a discrepancy to remain between what's true and what's thought. Kudos to the Office of Health Promotion for renewing faith in a University that takes itself seriously.
(Jeffrey Eisenberg's column appears Mondays in The Cavalier Daily.)
Read More
PARTING SHOT: Girl, what did you expect?
By Cecy Juárez | 20 hours agoAdvocate for yourself unabashedly, even and especially when you feel like you don’t belong.
PARTING SHOT: Revisiting old comments
By Claire DiLorenzo | 20 hours agoIn retirement, I am also trying not to be hard on myself — I don’t have to hold onto all the mistakes that I made as an editor.
PARTING SHOT: Prides and joys
By Shaleah Tolliver | YesterdayI have seen what student journalism can do — it can highlight the marginalized, influence the majority and spark conversations.
