More importantly, we emphasize alcohol as something to be enjoyed in moderation, not slammed into a drunken oblivion. Essentially, we hold our students to a high behavioral standard but also understand the realities of college student drinking behavior. We're approaching our first major event of the fall, Boo's and Booze, a Halloween celebration that also emphasizes alcohol safety and safer sex practices. With this coming up, alcohol safety is on my mind quite frequently; I don't ever want the phone call that one of our students has been injured or passed away as a result of alcohol poisoning.
...I should also mention that I am one of two student conduct officers for my institution.
All this is likely nothing new, so what about this post is unbelEIvable?
Boo's and Booze also happens on the tail end of CU Denver's very first Homecoming week. UCD doesn't have an athletics program, so the events are sponsored and organized by various members of the academic and student affairs communities. Never in a million years would a prevention educator or student conduct officer dream of hosting a pub crawl for students. But, our academic departments are "above" that--and apparently "above" our alcohol policies, too. So that's exactly what is happening. I got a campus-wide email with a link to click on Homecoming events. Interested to see what was there, I clicked--and my jaw hit the floor. I saw this:
Tucked between Maya Angelou and Funny Field Day is UCD's Official Pub Crawl. The point of a pub crawl is to get drunk, if not sloppy drunk, at as many pubs as possible along the way. I made some phone calls to ask some questions on how this came to be. Apparently, this event is for alumni (or at least geared towards them), but please show me on the site where it says that information. This "experiment in higher education" had me in a twist for a number of reasons. If our student organizations ever attempted something like this, we would have nipped it in the bud so quickly it would have never been published.
So why then, when an academic department decides to go full speed ahead that no one stopped to question the ethics of this event? After a few more phone calls, the name of the event was changed to, "Historical LoDo Tour." I'm still not on board since the description didn't change at all, but at least it's not a Pub Crawl. Even Risk Management was okay with this as long as it all happened off-campus and was geared at non-students. The problem is that it's not either. It starts on campus and doesn't specify that alumni are the target audience. Even if it's just alumni, doesn't it still violate our ethical principles as educational institutions? Or maybe I'm just a stick in the mud!
Jill, thank you for sharing this post. I too find it absurd that an academic department would be promoting binge drinking to students. Alcohol related incidents have a great impact on college campuses across this country. I feel this invalidates the important work you do for the UCD community.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I am impressed with your ability to influence a name change. I appreciate your passion and persistence with this issue. I think it is imperative for us to voice our concerns whenever we are in disagreement. Although the event seems to still be taking place, you made the organizers think about the message the name was sending, and that is great.
Coming from an undergraduate institution, where the early morning pub crawl is a proud Homecoming tradition (although not an official university function), it was not until this year that I learned it was not an across the board event. Who knew some colleges and universities prefered dry Homecomings. NAU student's have been participating in Tequila Sunrise, for many year for at least a decade, if not longer.
ReplyDeleteThe event is sponsored by the local bars in downtown Flagstaff (the Homecoming Parade route runs past half of the major bars in Flagstaff, and a close distance to all the others) open their doors at 6am and drinks and breakfast is served until the parade starts at 11am. By 11am the parade route is packed with students, some sober, some not.
With the institution wanting to keep it's students safe, and educate them on safe drinking habits, how can they regulate an event not sponsored by the University. No to mention a city such as Flagstaff where the University and City relationship is thriving, how do they do so without hurting that relationship? Is CU looking to strengthen their relationship with the surrounding Boulder area?
I will proudly claim my stick in the muddness after reading your post! It sounds like the approach UCD has taken on issues of alcohol has been fair and open-minded: we get that students drink and how can we advocate for safe and moderate consumption. I get it - I enjoy a beer (the hoppier ther better) or a glass of wine after work. Like students and school I spend a lot of time at work; yet never have I worked for an organization that sponsored an opportunity for its employees to go out and get plastered - as the term "pub crawl" suggests. I also have to wonder at what point did alcohol and college become so synomous with each other?
ReplyDeleteTo contrast with another extreme I recently attended a meeting where one of the discussion items was the consideration of a "zero-tolerance" policy on campus. The item was redacted and its unknown whether it will pop up on a future agenda. I have some issues with this approach as well. As a campus that is concerned for its students safety we want to encourage a "culture of reporting" - and my question is how safe will students, staff or faculty feel about reporting when they know what the immediate consequence will be for a student. A more educational approach would feel better for me.
I don't see this issue disappearing any time soon as it seems to be so engrained in the culture of our colleges. Thank you for a great post.
First off, congrats on the name change...baby steps. Secondly, I called the only UCD alum I know and asked if he had received an invitation to this alumni-networking session. Shockingly, he had not heard of it :) Thirdly, I had to laugh in reading Libby's comment trying to imagine a work invitation to get plastered.
ReplyDeleteOn a more serious note, perhaps the school needs to see something go wrong in order to realize this is not a good idea. I certainly do not wish harm on anyone!!! But, perhaps a little minor scandal around students and faculty in mixed company drinking together could shed some light on the dangerous possibilities, or the lack of ethic in the very least!
Either way, I think you will have your work cut out for you the week after. I would be curious to hear what your peer educators have to say about this. They are probably used to having to program around peer stupidity, but to have to plan around the institution and faculty ignorance is different.
The assumption when we see "pub crawl" is that the group will run from bar to bar slamming beers one after another on their way to getting totally obliterated. But, how do we know this is the idea behind the event? While there are multiple potential problems that could arise from such an event, I agree with many of the points Kim makes. Also, the crawl, or tour, is guided by a professor. There are many benefits to be had here including social experiences, team building, gaining historical LODO knowledge, and strengthening community relationships. Student are going to drink. They might as well do it in a situation that is monitored and offers orther benefits.
ReplyDeleteThat seems risky to me. I agree, many of our students already drink but this does not mean we need to promote and provide opportunities to do so. Jill, one thing you said stuck out to me...UCD does not have any sports teams. University games usually are the central theme of homecoming weekends where students, alumni, family and friends can join and reconnect. In the absence of sporting events at UCD, I can understand a possible inclination to create a unique and fun event to make an "attractive" homecoming. This does not make me agree with the choice of a pub crawl activity but may be a possible reason it seems so different from the usual homecoming.
ReplyDeleteOne last thing I wonder about is this...what are the legal ramifications to this? Yes, this is an off campus event supposedly geared for UCD alumni but what happens if there is an accident, injury or heaven forbid, a death during the event? It is technically off campus but it is a campus promoted event. I would not want that worry of liability hanging over my head.
Thank you for your post Jill. While I do agree that hosting a "get plastered" seems controversial, if this event is truly for alumni, I would like to think of that group as being a little more mature and responsible. In other words, if this is just an event for alumni, one would hope they could moderate their alcohol consumption. If however, students are also able to attend, I would be curious of the outcome (I am hoping you will give us updates if anything goes badly). While I do not believe that we should promote drinking in excess to our students, I would also suggest that our students will be facing many opportunities to drink with colleagues once they are working in their profession. Perhaps teaching them how to drink responsibly now, instead their first professional conference, could be viewed as a learning opportunity.
ReplyDeleteThe other thing that came to mind immediately, was alumni issues that colleges and universities are experiencing (lack of financial support). A social event that allows alumni to kick back and relax may be exactly what the college needs to reconnect former students with the institution. It certainly sounds more entertaining than a fancy dinner where everyone is uncomfortable. Perhaps we will see more events like this for alumni. It may be the answer in reaching out and keeping the folks who just graduated connected with the college/university.
Now if this was focused on students, my viewpoint would be very different. With that said, I was thankful to learn that this was not geared at students, but alum. Odd yes, beyond alum, no! I know as part of a family who all want to Washington State University (except me)-they party and it was something they associate with the WAZZU way. Alum love this stuff and my father went back for his 40th year reunion this year for his WAZZU time, to hang out with his AGR (Alpha Gamma Rho) brothers, and I am sure drinking was on the list of events.
ReplyDeleteCould you imagine inviting alum to a dinner without alcohol? Okay I digress to my time in Utah, but other than that-absolutely not. Even most college president events have a bar which is often held on a college campus.
I can only hope when we are all done with our degrees as students-that we get a free glass of wine out of UNC! As alum, I believe we will for sure and I would be shocked if there were alum events without alcohol. It is a social thing and so folks do not have to participate in drinking or a “crawl” if they do not want to. Take ownership people! People make their own choices.
After reading this blog and all of the comments, I am obviously in the minority with this one but I'm going to go ahead and post (so please don't throw things at me next time you see me :)). I do see both sides of this topic but I don't believe it's a disaster in the making. I completely agree that the advertising may be a bit vague (not geared straight at alumni) and I also don't like the quote Jill refferred to "an experiment in higher education."
ReplyDeleteHowever, I don't agree that a pub crawl has the sole intention of getting people plastered. While I was studying abroad in Australia, I went to a number of student organization sponsored pub crawls. They were normally limited hours (maybe 9 pm to midnight or 10 pm to 1am), there was ONE drink available at each bar with the price of Pub Crawl registration and there was ALWAYS a non-drinking activity of some sort involved. They were much more of a social situation where we got to know others attending the event and got to see more of the city we lived in as an inernational student. These pub crawls were probably a handful of the times that there was not heavy binge drinking going on, AND we were all carded at the doors of the bars - it wasn't just free reign because it was an organized event.
I don't mean to defend this situation whole-heartedly as I have no idea the intentions of the group or if they have activities planned during the outing but I do believe that it could be an interesting and fun outing that may create relationships and networking opportunities.
I have to agree with Dana to some extent. While I understand that binge drinking is a pervasive problem in college, we need to be careful not to lift this concern to such a level that we immediately act negatively when we see the term, "Pub Crawl."
ReplyDeleteLooking at the ad, it seems that a) it is catered to ALumni, and b) is an opportunity to learn about the history of the area. It seems educational, and we need to consider that the presence of alcohol does not necessarily mitigate this.
Now if it is against school policy and undergraduate students are clearly involved, then perhaps this still borders on unbelievable. I just think we need to be careful not to relegate any event that involves alcohol as promoting student misconduct. Events such as this may show students how alcohol can be enjoyed in other ways.
If we encourage students to drink in moderation shouldn't this be role-modeled for them as well. This type of event seems like a way to foster this.
Jill, you and your peer educators have your work cut out for you. On the one hand, your group is charged with harm reduction related to alcohol use and as a part of that message, garner student buy in to accept that one can have fun and "be cool" in the absence of participating in binge drinking. Another aspect of this message is the ongoing work to dispel the misperception that binge drinking is the norm for a college student.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, your institution is sending the message that binge drinking is the norm and the goal of socializing. The term "pub crawl" brings to my mind images of people getting together for the main purpose of slamming as many cocktails at as many different establishments as possible. Hence the term "crawl" with the goal to get so plastered one cannot walk. Whether that is an accurate picture of a true "pub crawl" or not is irrelevant. It is the perception it paints. And at the risk of sounding cliché, perception influences behavior, especially in the 18-24 year old age group.
I have read the comments above supporting the university sanctioned event and I respectfully disagree. Some of the comments remind me of the "kids will be kids" attitude of years past when addressing drunk driving. Just because alcohol consumption is viewed as a part of college culture does not make the practice okay.
Contrary to how my comments probably make me sound, I am not an abstinence only proponent and have indeed over imbibed myself on occasion. I just do not believe that normalizing binge drinking is in anybody's best interest...least of all college students.