Student leaders and University officials encouraged students to "say something" to their peers about alcohol and substance abuse during this year's Substance Abuse Awareness Week, which began Monday.
"Say something" was the theme of this year's activities designed to educate students about substance abuse, especially the dangers of binge drinking.
"We want fellow students to talk to their friends about any behaviors that they are witnessing that they think might be dangerous," said Kathy Radd, chair of the University's alcohol and drug abuse prevention team. "It's teaching students to intervene."
The week intentionally was scheduled to precede this year's final two football games, both at home, against Georgia Tech this Saturday and Virginia Tech next Saturday, Radd said.
This week's events included a Monday night debate on the legalization of marijuana and a program titled "work hard, play hard," highlighting social norms at the University in regard to drinking. Saturday, a tailgate will be held prior to the football game in conjunction with the fourth-year class.
University President John T. Casteen, III sent out a University-wide e-mail yesterday to all students reminding them of the importance of sensible drinking habits and the dangers of the "fourth-year fifth," an unofficial tradition that most University officials say they believe started to become popular sometime during the 1980s.
In the correspondence, Casteen reminded students that their parents, faculty and himself "care about you profoundly" and that the "fourth-year fifth can kill you." Further, he challenged students to address the problem of dangerous drinking habits on-Grounds "both to protect yourselves and to protect your community."
He also noted that "the number of students requiring medical attention for abusing alcohol has jumped this fall after several years of decline."
According to Director of Student Health James C. Turner, to date this semester there have been 80 emergency room visits by undergraduate students related to alcohol, representing about 15 percent of total visits to the emergency room so far.
Turner said the total so far this year does not represent an aberration, especially when the classes cancelled for Hurricane Isabel are taken into account.
"When you close down classes, I'm afraid it just seems to provide the opportunity for students to party hardy and do a little bit more," he said, adding that typically only 0.7 percent of the University's 12,550 undergraduates will go the emergency room with an alcohol-related problem in a given academic year.
Complimenting Casteen's message, the fourth-year class trustees also decided to send a mass e-mail to all fourth- and fifth-year students for the first time, reminding them of the dangers of partaking of the fourth-year fifth, Fourth-Year Class President Justin Ferira said. The e-mail replaces the voluntary signing of pledge cards by students to decrease participation.
"People who will walk up and sign pledge cards are not going to be the people who will attempt it in the first place," Ferira said. "The story [of dangerous drinking] is going to be communicated better over an e-mail to everybody."
Marianne Bonday, assistant director of the University's center for alcohol and substance education, said that while alcohol education programming can help curtail excessive drinking, ultimately it is up to students to become a force for change.
"We can do all kinds of programs from this end, but the things that are going to make the biggest difference are the students being proactive and feeling empowered to address the issue at the time," Bonday said.
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