AROUND HIGHER EDUCATION: Harvard researchers discover link with frats and excessive drinking

Last December, researchers at Harvard University made an announcement that came as no surprise to most students: college campuses across the country are a haven for binge drinking. Now, that same group of researchers says it has pinpointed the culprits, citing the stereotypical member of the Greek system as the source of the majority of this "party animal" behavior. These latest findings, published in the July issue of the American Journal of Public Health, indicate that students who drink excessive or dangerous amounts of alcohol were most likely to be white fraternity members involved in athletics. In addition, the greatest predictor of binge drinking was membership in a fraternity or sorority. Students in this category were four times more likely to binge drink than non-Greeks. Researchers defined binge drinking in males as consuming five or more alcoholic drinks in one sitting in the past two weeks. For women, because of differences in metabolism and body weight, the limit was set at four drinks. More than 17,500 students at 140 randomly selected four-year colleges were surveyed for the study, which found that 44 percent of respondents had engaged in a drinking binge in the last two weeks -- 50 percent were men and 39 percent were women. The severity of binge drinking varied from campus to campus, the researchers also found. At one campus, only 1 percent of the students surveyed said they were binge drinkers. At another, the level was as high as 70 percent. And at 44 colleges, more than half the students reported drinking heavily in the past two weeks. Race also plays a factor in predicting who is likely to drink excessively. The study shows that white students were twice as likely to binge than non-whites. In January, fraternities at the University tried distance themselves from the "Animal House" stereotypes as the InterFraternity Council adopted a "Bring Your Own Beer" policy and pledged to restrict underage drinking at their parties. But the very weekend after the IFC ratified its BYOB policy, two fraternities were found to have violated the new alcohol guidelines. Monitors at Pi Kappa Phi and Zeta Psi caught the two fraternities serving alcohol at weekend social events. And while some colleges and universities are trying to draft policies to address the problem of binge drinking, one school has already taken action. Last month, the University of Texas at Austin shut down an all-male social club until the year 2000 after one of the group's pledges drowned in the Colorado River last semester. The student, who was underage, had been drinking heavily at an initiation event. The authors of the study called upon campus authorities to stop denying the extent of the problem of binge drinking and the problems it causes and start making broad institutional changes in attitudes toward drinking.

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