What is it?
This practice is one aspect of cultivating a more wholesome culture, a common thrust of which, whether implicit or explicit in an initiative, will be to counter the sentiment that alcohol use is normative or even necessary for a satisfying experience in an undergraduate educational setting. The variety of academic means to be taken to better situate alcohol use in students’ personal practice and broader thinking include strong stances on entrance requirements, admission procedures, orientation events, class and course requirement scheduling, performance standards and curriculum infusion.
Level of research support: Some evidence of effectiveness
Why do it?
Such measures aim to discourage excessive use (more liable to occasioning harms) while encouraging worthy priorities, improve discipline and study habits, and enhance appreciation for the impact of alcohol use as an issue that individuals and society have to deal with responsibly.
Strong entrance-related measures help to establish an institution's reputation and indicate a climate that will decrease, if not deter, selection by students who are especially seeking a "party place" to attend. Strategic scheduling reinforces institutional priorities, including unwillingness to accommodate risky or unhealthy drinking patterns (e.g., inordinate consumption on Thursday nights). Insistence on a sufficiently demanding workload sets a tone for first-year students who do better without too much spare time on their hands.
Such initiatives are for the most part not difficult or costly to implement, though commitment to support curriculum infusion will require allocation of resources to facilitate faculty buy-in.
Who is it for?
Who can facilitate it?
How can we implement it?
Revisit entrance requirements and procedures
Maintenance of strong entrance requirements and admission procedures can project a profile of an institution that takes its academic mandate seriously (rather than serving as a place to party). Such a stance accords with a mission to pursue, exemplify and encourage scholastic excellence, and to foster both strong personal development and career preparation. However, it can be challenged by concerns to obtain sufficient enrolment and tuition revenue.
Use orientation events to reinforce messages
Management of orientation events (e.g., workshops, seminars, official social gatherings) can highlight expectations as well as feature support services, underscoring learning priorities and demonstrating concern to help. Similarly, beginning a term (esp. the fall session) with a full five-day week of classes further reinforces scholastic focus. However, such emphases may need to overcome traditional incoming expectations of a prevalent party atmosphere and associated conditions at the start of the school year.
Reinforce high academic standards
Insistence on high performance standards with a sufficiently demanding work load encourages students to adopt better discipline and study habits. Giving occasional “spot check” mini quizzes as part of a course requirement and mark invites consistent attendance at class and works against absence owing to undue indulgence (with advance notification for such tests being only general, in the syllabus and introduction).
Revisit scheduling of core classes
Scheduling core classes on Friday mornings discourages Thursday evening partying and excess that can accompany such events. Scheduling of assignments and exams can be similarly strategic to inhibit exorbitant occurrence of festivity rather than accommodating unhealthy drinking patterns.
Encourage curriculum infusion
Formal endorsement of and provision for curriculum infusion can facilitate introducing students across a broad range of disciplines to the historical, cultural, political, social, economic and health issues related to alcohol production, marketing and consumption (including the management of adverse consequences). This will help students to appreciate the larger context of impact for drinking that societies and individuals need to deal with responsibly.
Some compilation by health promotion personnel of sample subjects for exploration and discussion in different disciplines should help dispel any faculty skepticism over relevance or relative importance of such material for education within these departments. Administrative support for such a curriculum infusion initiative should supply means for accumulation of pertinent content resources to fit the objectives of various courses. Stipends to teaching personnel to fund initial proposals for integration of alcohol-related content into courses could expedite implementation.
Article: Behavioural Economic Approaches
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