mm
M
ETHODIST
C
OLLEGE
Pride
Fayetteville, NC
Vol. XXXV, No. 3
Wednesday, October 1, 1997
Colleges struggle to deal with increased binge drinking
By Colleen De Baise
College Press Service
At Louisiana State Univer
sity, administrators tried to combat a
“party school” reputation by banning
alcohol from all student functions on
campus.
But the strict policy, it
seems, wasn’t enough. A week after
LSU was named to a national Top 10
Party School list, a 20-year-old frater
nity pledge died after consuming an
estimated 24 drinks in one sitting.
When police found Ben
jamin Wynne passed out on the floor
of Sigma Alpha Epsilon, his blood
alcohol content was 0.588—six times
above the legal limit to drive. Three
other students who had celebrated
firatemity bid day with him were hos
pitalized.
While the incident happened
at an off-campus party and bar, it was
enough to highlight the university’s
frustration with how to prevent stu
dents from binge drinking.
“The tragedy is com
pounded by the fact that, in recent
years, we have worked very hard to
educate our students about the con
sequences of alcohol and substance
abuse, ” said LSU chancellor William
L. Jenkins. “Unfortunately, it is not
humanly possible to totally regulate
the conduct of our students, particu
larly in their off-campus activities.”
LSU is not the only univer
sity grappling with how to avoid some
of the tragic consequences of binge
drinking—which essentially is when a
student drinks five or more drinks in
one sitting. Even as more universi
ties scramble to implement bans on
alcohol and step up enforcement,
growing numbers of students admit
to binge drinking.
A national study recently re
leased by the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention found that
during a 30-day period in 1995,34 per
cent of college students had con
sumed five or more alcoholic drinks
on at least one occasion. Slightly
more than four percent said they had
drunk on at least 20 of the 30 days.
A 1995 study by Harvard
University’s School of Public Health
found more cases of binge drinking
reported by fraternities and sororities,
which it referred to as “functional sa
loons,” According to the survey, 86
percent of fraternity men and 80 per
cent of sorority women are binge
drinkers.
The CDC study pointed to
some of the potential side effects of
binge drinking; date rape, HIV infec
tion, poor academic performance and
car accidents.
And in the past year alone,
a number of deaths from binge drink
ing have been reported, AtFrostburg
By Sonya Sparks Murdock
Staff Writer
Now that Methodist’s stu
dents have had a month to settle back
into college life, most of you have
probably noticed one major campus
improvement that occurred over the
lazy days of summer; Computers that
really work!
Returning MC students will
especially appreciate this computer
upgrade, after experiencing the tor
ments of using the CAC (Computer
Assisted Composition) lab in past
years. The 34 dinosaurs that the col
lege once passed off a^ computers
have now been replaced by 20 brand-
spanking-new Pentium processors
with 133 megaherz clock speed. The
old 386 computers, which offered only
25 megaherz clock speed, were
plagued by viruses. Sometimes as
many as half of the computers in the
lab were simultaneously crashed by
these bugs, often leaving students
panicking over term-paper deadlines.
The new systems are disc-free, which
promises to leave the lab virtually vi
rus-free.
Other ancient relics that
have been replaced are the faulty old
dot matrix printers that slowly
screeched out students’ papers ...
when they worked. The college in
vested in a Hewlett Packard laser
printer that is capable of producing
thousands of high-quality documents
per hour. Located in the lab atten-
State University in Maryland, eight
fraternity members were charged with
manslaughter following the death of
a freshman. The 20-year-old had
drunk eight cups of beer and 14 shots
of vodka in two hours.
This spring, eight members
of Theta Chi fraternity at Clarkson
University in New York pleaded guilty
in the hazing death of a 17-year-old
pledge who choked on his own vomit
and died. The fraternity’s pledges had
been told to stand in a circle and drink
until they threw up, authorities said.
The most recent case at LSU
comes a month after two members of
Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity at Uni
versity of California-Los Angeles
drowned in an alcohol-related inci
dent.
“How many of these will it
take to make people wake up to the
issue?” said Kevin Patrick, director
of the health center at San Diego State
University, who served as an expert
for the CDC study. “1 don’t know of
anything dramatic that is being done
now or is in the wings as far as chang
ing this pattern of behavior.”
But what campuses can do
to prevent binge drinking is not ex
actly clear. The University of Colo
rado is one of six campuses that re
ceived a grant from.the Robert Wood
Johnston Foundation to curb all drink
ing on and off campus. Last May,
however, the crackdown on drinking
resulted in student riots against po
lice.
“The attempted change of
culture never had a buy-in with the
students, ” said Jon Cooper, one of
three student body presidents at CU.
“They were doing it in a way that was
very antagonistic. They used a lot of
scare tactics.”
Students continue to com
plain about what they view as a heavy-
handed approach to alcohol by local
authorities. One fraternity member
told Cooper that he was studying in
his room when the police shined a
spotlight through the window to see
what he was doing. “It was a very
‘get-in-your-face’ attitude,” Cooper
said.
The university maintains that
strict enforcement is appropriate on a
campus where most students are un
der the legal drinking age of 21.
But Cooper says he would
like the university to fund special pro
grams that teach students-regardless
of their age-how to drink responsi
bly and that “alcohol use is OK, but
alcohol abuse is wrong.”
Such programs would be
problematic to the mission of the Rob
ert Wood Johnson Foundation grant,
which discourages alcohol use in gen
eral, said Robert Maust, who directs
the grant program at CU.
“The university has no desire
to take some institutional stance that
says, ‘Humans-all people—should not
use alcohol,’ [but] the grant part of
the university will take a much more
aggressive approach to always asking
the question, ‘Why alcohol at all,’” he
said.
With binge drinking on the
rise, a number of universities, like CU,
have implemented no-alcohol policies.
In March, two national fraternities.
Sigma Nu and Phi Delta Theta, de
cided to ban alcohol at all chapter
houses starting in 2000.
Other colleges are choosing
to focus on binge drinking rather than
alcohol use in general. At Western
Maryland College, all freshmen this
fall will take part in the On Campus
Talking About Alcohol program,
which discusses, among other things,
binge drinking versus drinking re
sponsibly, according to Bonnie
Bosley, health services director.
The program used to be only
required for students who violated the
school’s alcohol policy. Now, all
freshmen will undergo training “be
cause of the prevalence of alcohol
problems among the nation’s new col
lege students who come to college
thinking it is, or should be, just like
Animal Housed Bosley said, in refer
ence to the 1978 movie starring John
Belushi.
Computer upgrades
welcome change for MC
dants’ cubicle at the back of the room,
the laser printer is accompanied by a
flatbed color scanner that students
can use to visually enhance their
projects this year.
Students will find that, with
the new systems, MC has finally
caught up with 20th century computer
technology. Lab attendant John
Lynch admits, “We went from a Model
A Ford to a (top of the line) Corvette”
with the computer system upgrade.
Speaking of lab attendants,
the college has employed three knowl
edgeable assistants (one full-time and
two part-time) to aid students during
all lab hours. The attendants are also
in charge of setting up students’ ac
counts and creating students’ e-mail
addresses.
Yes, I said e-mail. E-mail
accounts are another new benefit for
students who wish to use the lab. All
20 computers in the lab have been
upgraded with free Internet access this
year, a considerable improvement over
last year’s two Internet-capable com
puters located in the library. The e-
mail is a free and easy method for stu
dents to keep in touch with fiiends and
family back home, compared to the
high prices of long-distance phone
service these days. Lynch states,
“Parents are pretty happy” with the
college’s new e-mail program for stu
dents. He adds that, while students
See LAB, page 3
Ir
f
%
I
V
Senior tailback DeCarlos West, the Monarchs’ all-time leading rusher and scorer, ran for 85
yards on 21 carries and scored two touchdowns against Chowan in the season opener Sept. 6.
The Monarchs won their fifth-straight opener, defeating the Braves 25-20, and are currently
ranked 18th nationally in NCAA Division III. They are also off to their best start ever with a
record of 3-0. (Photo by Scott Galayde)
To combat heavy drinking,
the University of Illinois has started a
program targeted toward college
freshmen called “Alcohol 101.” The
program, funded by The Century
Council, developed an interactive CD-
ROM that takes students to a virtual
party where they come face to face
with he consequences of their personal
alcohol-related behavior. The pro
gram is being piloted on more than 30
college campuses.
Patrick, from San Diego
State, says there’s no clear-cut ap
proach to how universities should deal
with binge drinking.
“That’s our dilemma in this
country,” he said. “There is no magic
bullet. We have to grapple with this
and deal with this.”
Some health experts are en
couraging a community-wide backlash
against drinking, similar to what has
happened in the past years with ciga
rette smoking, Patrick said.
“Some of us hope what
might happen with this is removing the
focus from the individual to the people
around that individual, the social net
work,” he said. “What is it that’s stop
ping people from smoking? Nasty
looks [from] friends.”
Some students say it’s un
likely they’ll stop drinking altogether-
-although looking out for friends is
See BINGE, page 2
Study abroad
offers unique
opportunity
By Joey Harris
Contributing Writer
Imagine traveling the world,
seeing new sights, meeting new
people, and getting semester hours
toward your graduation for it. For
some Methodist College students last
summer, that dream became a reality.
The British Studies Program
gave students a chance to study
abroad in the United Kingdom while
getting semester hours that trans
ferred back to Methodist.
Dr. Neal McCrillis, coordina
tor for the program, explained that
even though Methodist just started
offering the program, it has existed for
quite some time. “The program is
about 20-25 years old, but the sum
mer of 1997 was the first time it has
ever been offered here,” McCrillis said.
Five students went on this
year’s trip and studied a variety of
courses, such as British law and crimi
nal justice, a course about the legend
of King Arthur, and Golf in the King
dom; An Economic and Cultural His
tory of Sports and Leisure.
The students in the program
took many field trips and received lec
tures on a variety of topics. “That’s
the great thing about the British Stud
ies Program,” said McCrillis. “The
students get to visit different places
while learning more about what they
See STUDY ABROAD, page 3
Students addicted to Internet chat rooms
By Dawn Melvin
Staff Writer
The Internet is a very useful
resource, but it can also be addiction
for many college students.
According to Karen
Schreiner, a CAC lab assistant at
Methodist, most students who go into
the CAC lab usually go into the chat
rooms where they can spend two or
more hours talking with others.
Schreiner said that she sees many of
the same students also come in to
work on the Internet.
In the computer lab, a stu
dent is able to have Internet access
and their own e-mail address when
they are given an account.
Chat rooms
are the most
explored by
college stu
dents. They
can spend
hours talking
to people
who share
similar inter
ests, or just
for fiin.
Sema Hashemi, a junior at
Methodist, says that she uses the
Internet to check her e-mail, but she
says that she is not addicted to the
Internet. “I get on to chat and to
browse around, and that is after I have
done all of my work for my classes,”
she said.
According to the College
Press Service, students are vulnerable
to the Internet. Psychologist Kim
berly S. Young of the University of
Pittsburgh stated that some college
students spend so much time on the
Internet that they fiunk out of college.
Young also said that such
obsessive behavior should be viewed
by the mental health community as
seriously as alcohol or drug use, and
that obsessive Internet users can
spend up to 38 hours online each
week. Obsessive Internet users, or
“dependents,” stay online for hours
each day and often create new per
sonalities for themselves in chat
rooms, she said.
In her study. Young found
that for many users, chat room rela
tionships answer “a deep and com
pelling need in people whose real lives
are interpersonally impoverished.”
Research subjects also said they had
jeopardized jobs, relationships, and
other opportunities for the Net. “De
pendents” met certain criteria includ
ing a preoccupation with the Internet,
inability to control use, and irritabil
ity or other withdrawal symptoms
when trying to cut back use.
INSIDE
Campus house inspires ghost stories
--page 2
Sports highlights and upcoming events
-page 3
Student Government Association update
-page 3
Movie Review: Gl Jane
-page 4
I