Every weekend across America, at least one university student dies because of an alcohol-related event during the school year. Some are killed in car crashes. Others fall down stairs or choke on their own vomit. Avoiding alcohol doesn’t shield students from its effects: 87 percent of college students say they have been victimized by binge-drinking friends, roommates or neighbors.

So far, University of Delaware administrators say, the school has been “relatively lucky.” But, UD’s management team is taking no chances. To prevent alcohol-related tragedies here, officials have implemented behavorial changes, focusing on individual responsibility–rather than prohibition.

“It’s one of our jobs to help keep University people safe,” University President David P. Roselle says. “That has meant policy changes, stronger enforcement and awareness about the consequences of abusing alcohol. Rather than distancing ourselves from this problem, we are determined to wrap our arms around it and to bring it into the light.”

Now entering year three of an effort to reduce alcohol abuse by students, UD officials are determined to defeat binge drinking. Already, a five-year, $700,000 grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has helped to more than double UD’s population of students who abstain, says Roland M. Smith, vice president for student life. During the same time period, Smith says, the level of binge drinking on campus dropped, with 57 percent of all students reporting incidents of alcohol abuse, down from 62 percent in 1993.

“These are positive trends,” Smith says. “The new measures—to revamp our judicial system, toughen sanctions and fines and implement a parental notification program–have had a real impact on the quality of life on our campus. Our efforts are being imitated by schools across the country.”

UD’s goal, Roselle says, is to promote responsible behavior, to avoid property damage and, above all, to prevent serious injuries or deaths. Toward that end, University administrators this fall chose to strictly enforce a long-standing tailgating policy, requiring tailgating parties to stop when the football games began. The “no-tailgating-after-kickoff” rule applied to anyone on UD property, whether they were students, alumni, employees or other visitors. Ads advising the public of the policy appeared in newspapers statewide, the student newspaper, The Review, and alumni publications. Students were warned that, by tailgating past the start of the game, they could face failure-to-comply charges and sanctions up to and including suspension for violation of the Code of Conduct.

The enforcement of the tailgating policy during this year’s Homecoming game was especially successful. According to Larry Thornton, director of UD’s Public Safety, four arrests were made for underage drinking and two for disorderly conduct, but no students were transported to the hospital for alcohol poisoning. At last year’s Homecoming game, in contrast, there was a record 23 cases of alcohol poisoning—not all of them students.

Moreover, attendance at football games in 1999 established an all-time record for Delaware Stadium. This clearly signifies that the great majority of fans appreciated the efforts made to provide an atmosphere free of alcohol-related incidents, Roselle says.

Ongoing concern about alcohol abuse on U.S. campuses gained momentum in 1993, when a Harvard School of Public Health study revealed that 44 percent of all students nationwide were binge drinkers–consuming multiple drinks in a single sitting (five for men; four for women).

“That was the clarion call,” says John B. Bishop, assistant vice president for student life and director of UD’s Robert Wood Johnson Foundation program. “As is generally the case in the Northeast, binge drinking on our campus was above the national norm.”

The 1993 Harvard study clearly described “the four Vs” of binge drinking—violence, vandalism, vomit and victims. For the first time, researchers described the effects of alcohol abuse on non-drinkers, as well as drinkers. Just as anti-smoking efforts gained strength after the effects of second-hand smoke were demonstrated, Bishop says, the Harvard findings propelled efforts across the country to curb binge drinking.

“Many students said they had been victimized by someone else who was abusing alcohol,” Bishop reports. “That doesn’t mean they were all assaulted. Sometimes, it meant that their sleep was disturbed or they had to baby-sit a drunken roommate. Most U.S. students reported having those experiences.”

UD administrators responded by assembling a Campus/Community Coalition, including some 100 faculty, students, administrators and city leaders. They also announced a series of changes, from a three-strikes-and-you’re-out policy for alcohol violations to parental notification, fines and a new, five-star rating system, which rewards good grades and responsible behavior by members of UD’s Greek community.

The University’s view of parental notification is that it is corollary to the belief that alcohol abuse is a health issue. In particular, UD administrators did not want to be in the position of telling the parents of a student involved in some alcohol-related tragedy that he or she had previously been cited for alcohol abuse. Not sharing such information deprives parents of the opportunity to make interventions in their students’ lives. UD experience has been that parents understand and appreciate this point of view and that, once notified, they have taken active roles to help ensure that their student’s problems do not reoccur.

As a measure of the effectiveness of the new policies, it should be noted that among all violations of UD’s alcohol policies in 1997, only 8 percent were third offenses, and 23 percent were second offenses, says Tim Brooks, assistant vice president for student life. Moreover, the number of upperclassmen who elected to remain in residence halls increased by 300, even after the implementation of new alcohol policies. “We were concerned that upperclassmen would flee the residence halls,” Brooks says, “but the reverse occurred. More people wanted to stay because we were providing them a safer, more peaceful environment.”

The Greek five-star rating system also is discouraging bad behaviors, by rewarding fraternities and sororities for excellence in five key areas—academics, financial management, service, campus involvement and new-member education. None of Delaware’s fraternities qualified for five stars during the 1996-97 school year. But, by October 1999, six of 19 fraternities at UD earned five stars. Another nine fraternities held three- or four-star ratings and all sororities are rated as either four- or five-star.

And, Greek grades are improving as of this fall. “UD fraternity men’s grades are equal to all UD men’s grades, and UD sorority women’s grades are equal to all UD women’s,” says Noel Hart, former coordinator of Greek affairs.

When a reporter from the Christian Science Monitor visited UD to document this positive change last year, he talked with senior Derek Stoner, AG 2000,who echoed the sentiments of many students fed up with the old “animal house” mentality. “The good frats are no longer the ones throwing big parties,” Stoner told reporter Mark Clayton. “It’s the ones doing charity work and helping out around campus.”

As the program continues to mature and expand, what challenges now face UD administrators? For Smith and others, “combating the culture of alcohol abuse is a key priority,” he says. “We are determined to reverse the notion that it is acceptable to get drunk and behave badly.”

Alcohol problems begin at an early age. Half of all college-age binge drinkers say their bad habits began in high school. By age 18, the average young person has been bombarded by 100,000 alcohol commercials.

Unfortunately, underage drinking “is a fact of life in our society,” Bishop says. That’s why he recently met with counselors, principals, coaches and teachers from six Delaware high schools, to launch a pilot program targeting abusive drinking by teenagers.

Community leaders like former Newark Mayor Ron Gardner are spearheading efforts to discourage easy availability of alcohol. City policymakers have passed deed restrictions on three recent Main Street projects, making it illegal ever to sell alcohol at these new retail locations. Sen. Joseph Biden and other legislators have supported UD’s efforts, too, by passing an “Alcohol Code of Principles,” which spells out responsible behaviors on college campuses.

Meanwhile, UD administrators are blanketing the campus with a poster campaign, contrasting the negative consequences of alcohol abuse with more constructive alternatives to drinking. “Trashed?” one poster asks, showing an unconscious student, but, a poster titled “Wasted” shows students recycling waste products, and the “Hammered” poster depicts students building a house for Habitat for Humanity.

“This series of posters questioning the traditional image of UD as a party school has drawn a positive response from the campus community and nationally,” Roselle says. “We’ve had requests for reprints from such agencies as the Texas Alcohol Beverage Commission and the Washington, D.C., Center for Science in the Public Interest.

“Every student on our campus should have a strong negative reaction to the traditional meaning of the term “party school” when applied to UD,” he says. “That connotation degrades, not only the outstanding contributions of faculty and staff, but also the hard work, intelligence and accomplishments of the students who are enrolled here.”

Several questions need to be pursued during the second half of the RWJF program, Roselle says. “We need to get the message out to the larger community that the supply of alcohol in Newark comes from private enterprises, and we all need to become better informed and concerned about how those enterprises may contribute to our mutual problems. How do the suppliers encourage the use of alcohol? How do our laws enable the culture of heavy alcohol use to be sustained? What is the role of local and state government?

“On our own campus, we need to make it clear to students that we are not about prohibition. We are, instead, in favor of responsible behavior. That is a big difference. We want students to be concerned about their own safety and the safety and quality of life of others, and to understand that acting responsibly does not mean that you can’t have fun.”