Alcohol inevitably becomes a spotlight issue in the week leading up to the last home football game and the legendary fourth-year fifth. However, the University's drinking culture has also garnered national attention, including a front-page article in the Wall Street Journal earlier this month.
But does the University deserve the scrutiny? Cindy Miller, Student Health's Social Norms Marketing Campaign Director, is trying to combat the reputation that everybody at the University drinks.
"I think students overestimate how much of a party school U.Va. is, because there's a lot of tradition here - the Wahoo label, the fourth-year fifth, and the way other people perceive U.Va.," she said.
Miller believes depictions in the media add to these false impressions by portraying a college experience dominated by drinking. To tackle these sometimes exaggerated media perceptions, the University utilizes social norms programs to educate students through informational flyers and support groups about the real and not-so-real images of college life.
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"You sort of walk in the door sometimes with the idea that everyone in college drinks, but what we know, from the surveys we've done, is that 60 percent of U.Va. first-year students are having 0 to 5 drinks per week. That's a lot different from the 'Animal House' image of what college is like," she said.
Statistics such as these are what drive the social norms marketing campaign, a program based on feedback from students that aims to educate the student body about the misperceptions of alcohol use.
Student Health committed to the campaign in 1997, after the alcohol-related death of University student Leslie Baltz prompted University officials to form a task force to curb alcohol abuse. Baltz's death was the fifth alcohol-related death in the Commonwealth that fall.
Several colleges around the country had adopted social norms programs, and the University followed suit, discarding the scare-tactics approach of the 80s and early 90s for the information-based method of social norms marketing.
Susie Bruce, director of CASE, the Center for Alcohol and Substance Education on Grounds, likes the social norms approach because it's "more appropriate to reflect back to students what they're actually doing, including students who choose not to drink."
Miller stressed that the purpose of the social norms campaign is not to encourage drinking. Rather, she explained, the University has chosen to be realistic.
"We say OK, you know what the legal drinking age is. You know what the repercussions are if you get caught underage drinking. We know you know that. We understand that in spite of all of that, some of you are going to choose to drink anyway. So, here's how to drink responsibly, and here's what you need to know" she said.
The program gives information on subjects ranging from statistics on the average amount of alcoholic drinks students consume in a week to how to help an intoxicated friend.
So far, the campaign has focused on first-year students -- the easiest demographic to reach, since they are required to live on Grounds.
In the spring of 2000, the Office of Health Promotion administered a survey to all first-year students, asking questions about knowledge, perceptions, attitudes and behaviors related to alcohol use. 60.5 percent of first-years completed the voluntary, anonymous survey, and the results were posted on bathroom stalls in first-year residences.
Miller extolled the effectiveness of this ingenious bathroom-stall marketing method: "Having those posters in the bathroom stalls, if you stop and think about it - you got nothing else to do! You know, you're just sitting there and you can read a poster," she said.
In fact, 95.2 percent of first-years reported being exposed to the ironically named Stall Seat Journals two or more times, making the posters the most available source of alcohol information for first-year students.
Some statistics the posters advertise come as a surprise to many students. For example, the survey asked first-years the typical number of alcoholic drinks they consumed per week. 36 percent of first-years reported that they abstain from alcohol use. But, students' perceptions of how many of their peers refrain from alcohol consumption hovered at .2 percent.
Martin explained that the discrepancy occurs as a result of selective memory.
"If you see people stumbling down the street, and you see someone walking with a lampshade on their head - whatever. That makes you feel, or think, that everybody's doing this, because that's all you're seeing around you. And the theory is that if we tell students what the norm is, what's actually going on in the student body, then they'll adjust their drinking behaviors more towards the norm. Because if you think everybody's doing it, that's what creates imaginary peer pressure."
Students give these efforts mixed reviews. As far as the bathroom posters go, first-year College student Leslie Parks said, "They are interesting to read, but I don't know if they've necessarily had an effect on my drinking habits at all."
Adam Kron, a fourth-year College student, said despite the University's efforts to curb excessive alcohol use, "a lot of fourth-years still do" attempt to drink the fourth-year fifth. He maintained that he "probably would have if not for other obligations this weekend."
On the other hand, third-year Engineering student Evan Edwards said that over the past couple of years, he's "definitely noticed a decrease" in the amount of irresponsible drinking at the University. He attributed the decline to changing attitudes about alcohol abuse at the University.
"I don't think it's as much pressure to do [the fourth-year fifth] anymore," he said, citing a recent political cartoon in The Cavalier Daily which displayed a bottle of vodka with the caption "Absolut Stupid."
What surprises many people more than the varying perceptions of alcohol use is the source of funding for the social norms campaign: Anheuser-Busch. The partnership between the University and the brewery best known for its Budweiser and Bud Lite beers has come under heavy scrutiny, most notably in the recent Wall Street Journal article.
In that article, Dean of Students Penny Rue admitted to feeling "conflicted" about accepting Anheuser's money for the social norms campaign. She declined to elaborate on that for The Cavalier Daily.
Other administrators, however, have no qualms about the funding, which amounts to $150,000 over five years. Bruce explained "It's not the same as the distributor saying 'Hey, we want to come to U.Va.' It's an alumni looking to give back to his university."
1968 University graduate John Nau III instigated Anheuser's involvement when he heard about social norms programs at a meeting about University fundraising. Nau owns an Anheuser distributorship in Houston. At his urging, Anheuser decided to donate money to the social norms program.
Miller thinks "there's a lot of misperception right now within the student body about that funding. Anheuser-Busch approached us after we started the social norming program. They did not approach us with money to do the social norming campaign."
Bruce agrees that the funding has positively impacted the University community because Anheuser-Busch does not have any influence over the marketing campaign.
"We've had complete control. It's a good relationship because it's allowed us to do the program really well. It hasn't been that we had to run our materials by them in any way, shape, or form," Bruce said.
In addition, the social norms campaign is not required to plug Anheuser's products. "We don't have to advertise. There are no strings behind it. If we had to put an alcohol logo on all of our materials, I don't think we would have supported it," Bruce said.
So with no authority over the marketing campaign and no advertising benefits, what are the true motives behind Anheuser-Busch's funding?
"We can guess what Anheuser-Busch's motivations are, but we have seen nothing in the two, almost three years we've been working with them to make us believe there is any ulterior motive to this grant. They have an interest in preventing young people from dying, just as we do," Miller said. Several administrators also speculated that the brewery is trying to avoid the negative publicity and legal problems of the tobacco industry.
Regarding Anheuser's $1.2 million donation for an environmental-research center at the University, Miller said "it is completely unrelated [to the social norms campaign]."
Miller also noted that when the grant was first announced, it was advertised and reported on. "There are no secrets here. It's very out in the open," she said.
"Our goal isn't to sell an Anheuser-Busch product. Our goal isn't to sell alcohol. Our goal is to sell responsible behavior. And that's what social marketing does," she said.
(More statistics are available to all students on the Health Promotions Web site: http://www.virginia.edu/studenthealth/hp/norms/virginiaUVA.html)
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