University Business - July 2008 - (Page 36)

C A M P U S H E A LT H “Mocktail, anyone?” Members of Frostburg State U’s BURG Peer Education Network,which promotes healthy choices on campus and provides recreational alternatives to drinking and drugging, serve non-alcoholic drinks at a campus event. Frostburg State U (Md.) students attempt to walk a straight line while wearing goggles that simulate drunkenness. A Different Kind of Armed with new data, campus leaders are taking a more ONG BEFORE HE BECAME PRESIDENT OF Frostburg State University (Md.), Jonathan C. Gibralter was teaching elsewhere. The high level of student alcohol abuse compelled him and his wife—who ran the alcohol and drug prevention program there—to personally urge the president to take action. “If you don’t do something about this,” Gibralter’s wife said, “somebody’s going to die.” “About two weeks later, in an oﬀ-campus apartment, two kids were under the inﬂuence, and one pulled out a knife and cut the other kid, and he died,” Gibralter says. A stronger stance from the president and more institutional programming about alcohol and other drugs might have prevented the tragedy, he adds. That incident remained in Gibralter’s mind as he progressed in his career. When he attained the presidency at Frostburg—where students had a reputation as hard partiers—he began his tenure with a ﬁrm pronouncement, saying, “I’m not putting up with this. I’m not accepting that it’s part of our culture.” In the student newspaper, he announced a “zero tolerance” policy for the use and abuse of alcohol and other drugs on campus. “Some of the students didn’t like it. A lot of students thanked me,” he recalls. Gibralter’s public stand places him in a growing but still small minority of university presidents who openly acknowledge that substance-abuse issues are present on campus. Progressive colleges and universities are shifting their primary eﬀorts from individual users to the entire campus community and emphasizing to students that a fulﬁlling collegiate experience can be had without substance abuse. A Perpetual Problem L The National Institute on Drug Abuse’s report Monitoring the Future: National Survey Results on Drug Use, 1975–2006 reports that 36 | July 2008 despite considerable attempts to raise awareness over the last several years, the use of alcohol by college students has remained fairly steady. As Gibralter points out, the negative consequences continue to be numerous: 1,700 alcohol-related deaths and nearly 600,000 injuries annually, almost 70,000 assaults in which alcohol plays a role, and such academic setbacks as missed classes, failing grades, and ﬂunking out for an estimated 25 percent of students. Equally troubling, according to data collected by the alcoholprevention ﬁrm Outside the Classroom, while binge drinking levels have stayed essentially the same, female drinking has increased dramatically, reaching rates equal to those of men. The other noteworthy trend, according to both data and campus observers, is that while the use of illicit drugs has begun to fall, prescription drugs are being misused in larger numbers. Opioids such as OxyContin and Vicodin, depressants such as Valium and Xanax, and stimulants such as Ritalin and Adderall are easily obtained online or from parents or friends and can become problematic swiftly. “Young people get them prescribed—they have their tonsils out, they have a surgery, they break an arm—and then they get addicted to them very quickly,” says Sharon Guck, coordinator of the Alcohol and Substance Abuse Program at Western Connecticut State University. “Others try them illegally right from the beginning.” The powerful stimulant properties of newer prescription medications have made them very attractive to stressed-out, overscheduled students, who believe that because they have been prescribed by a physician, they must be safe—never mind that the prescriptions often aren’t even theirs to begin with. “They don’t have a real sense of being involved in anything that we would typically call drug abuse or substance abuse,” says Kitty Harris-Wilkes, director of Texas Tech University’s Center for the Study of Addiction and Recovuniversitybusiness.com http://universitybusiness.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of University Business - July 2008

University Business - July 2008
Contents
College Index
Company Index
Advisory Board
Editor's Note
Behind the News
Viewpoint
Money Matters
Financial Aid
Human Resources
Students in Need, Schools at the Ready
Security Officers Speak Out
Advancement Goes Digital
A New Day for NASFAA
Sustainable Admissions
What's New
End Note

University Business - July 2008