Palm - Spring 2008 - (Page 2) ato palm GOOD OF T HE OR D ER SPRING 2008 VOLUME CXXIX, NUMBER 1 Editor: Wynn R. Smiley Managing Editor: Matthew S. DeWolf Magazine Design: Todd Shelton Chief Executive Officer: Wynn R. Smiley Publishing continuously since 1880. The ATO Palm is the official publication of the Alpha Tau Omega Fraternity. Membership: The Alpha Tau Omega Fraternity is a participating member in the NorthAmerican Interfraternity Conference, the Fraternity Executives Association and the College Fraternity Editors Association. ALCOHOL IN FRATERNITIES HAS BECOME AN ISSUE in a way that people came to understand that getting on the wrong side of the Ten Commandments was hazardous to a peaceful life. That is, the tablets got a lot of publicity immediately after Moses carried them down from high atop Mt. Sinai. Of course, just like the Almighty’s Top Ten, alcohol was causing problems before all of the attention. An article in the May 1958 issue of the ATO Palm starts like this: “I am an ATO. During my undergraduate days the Palm described me as one ‘whose collegiate career on the campus and within the Fraternity has brought a number of well-earned laurels to the active chapter…’ Now I am an alcoholic. Starting with the ‘sociable drinking’ of fraternity dances, beer busts, football rallies and weekend house parties, I ended up a few years later sans money, family, friends, home, business, health and self respect. From Worthy Master to town drunk – that was me.” I haven’t been to a fraternity party in quite awhile, which will come as a great relief to 100 percent of ATO undergraduates, so I don’t have first hand experience of how or how much alcohol is consumed. I can tell you that it’s hard to believe that tossing more than a few back is that much worse today than when I was in college in the 1980s. I know from alumni stories that start off, “When I was in the chapter…” (cue eye-rolling of undergraduate hearing story), most of my contemporaries feel the same way as I do. Never-the-less, despite —or maybe because of— the legal age of alcohol consumption being raised to 21, people who study these things say today’s college students are in the tank a lot. Apparently campuses are so alcohol saturated that in the first six weeks of their freshman year the vast majority of students succumb to what’s known as the “College Effect.” Even without going into it, one instinctively knows that the College Effect will not be appearing in those slick university marketing pieces anytime soon. Researchers have a couple of other interesting eye openers. For example, a growing number of incoming freshmen don’t drink (unless, of course, they are consumed by the College Effect). Also, who we would consider the college drunk, the guy in my chapter we affectionately called Sponge, is not the person doing all the damage to himself and others. In fact, students who are doing the most damage are those “moderate” drinkers who only get blasted once or twice a week. And doesn’t that make us all feel better? It is in this environment that hundreds of college alcohol programs designed to turn the tide on consumption have failed completely. . . with one exception. Even though it is an online course, AlcoholEdu understands the nuances of alcohol on campus and connects with undergraduates in a way that is showing results. Thanks to alumni who are willing to donate dollars to the ATO Foundation, all ATO undergraduates experience AlcoholEdu free of charge. Thank goodness. Regardless if you think the college equivalent of the Ten Commandments is much ado about not much, even if the course prevents one ATO from falling into a life-long trap or worse, it’s worth it, don’t you think? 2 Wynn R. Smiley Chief Executive Officer On the Cover: Much like the view of the beer bottle on the cover, our feature story Bottoms Up dives headfirst into the AlcoholEdu program to see how it is changing student behaviors . . . from the bottom to the top. AT O PA L M SPRING 2008
For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.