GUEST COLUMNIST: Do you have what it takes?

I wonder if, as you hurried to class on Monday, glancing over the headlines, the one that read "Two students sent to HUP for over-drinking" gave you pause? It certainly gave me pause, although I am heartened that students are helping one another by seeking assistance if their friends have had too much to drink. Getting help when needed is the right thing to do and I hope it will continue. I would hope, too, that if a student's over-drinking seems habitual and addictive, that you will urge him or her to seek treatment for alcoholism. I am very concerned, as are college and university presidents across the country, that binge drinking and related aggressive behavior seem to be escalating on college campuses, including our own. I am saddened, too, that our most promising generation puts itself in so much danger. Most unfortunate is that alcohol use is considered the social norm by some students on college campuses. Having spent much of my career studying health-promoting and health-damaging behavior, I am especially worried by the pervasive view that if you don't drink, you cannot have as much fun. A cultural shift away from this view needs to stem from a grass-roots effort: Students helping students. Penn students have what it takes to do anything they set out to do. I know that, and it makes me proud to be a Penn alumna and its president. Penn students are leaders, unparalleled in their intelligence and ambition. Penn students want to change the world, and I believe they can. Penn students also love a challenge, and I want to lay one before you. As you well know, Penn is a university of firsts -- the nation's first university, the nation's first medical school, the nation's first school of business, the list goes on. I challenge you to make Penn the first university where our very own students lead the campaign against excessive drinking. Are you willing to do what it takes to abolish excessive drinking and the risk that one of your fellow students will die from drinking too much? If my colleagues or I say binge drinking is harmful, it may have limited impact because it is not considered cool to listen to "the administration." But if you tell a peer that it is not cool to drink till you drop, that is another story. It is the beginning of a cultural shift. It is an opportunity to change your world. The students, faculty and staff on my special committee on alcohol abuse offered recommendations that can become the framework of a student campaign against excessive drinking. The campaign can be based, aptly enough, on committee-suggested strategies that spell the acronym PEERS -- Prevention, Education, Enforcement, Responsibility and Social Enrichment. · Prevention: Working with a coordinator of efforts against alcohol abuse whose appointment will be announced shortly, students can make constructive recommendations on how to maximize the existing strong but decentralized campus efforts against alcohol abuse. I plan to appoint a student advisory board to work with the coordinator. Working with the coordinator and the advisory board, you can spread the word that Penn students "work hard and play hard," but that Penn is not a hard-drinking school. You can help develop approaches to affirm the rights of non- and moderate drinkers. (In a very telling survey, 90 percent of Penn students reported that they are against drinking to excess. In the same survey, 76 percent of Penn students reported that they do not need to be drunk or high to have a good time.) You can make recommendations on ways to provide more consistent education about alcohol and more support and outlets for students feeling stress and social discomfort, so they do not use alcohol as a steam valve. · Education. You can work with faculty and others to educate your peers about ways to change the culture of excessive drinking and its widespread acceptance, the hazardous effects of alcohol on the body and the "second hand" effects of alcohol on friends, loved ones and students who share a campus with peers who abuse alcohol. You can work with the coordinator on important data collection and analysis to help us all fully understand the perceptions of excessive drinking and actual usage patterns. The research should be, as the committee suggested, quantitative and qualitative, with special attention to existing creative, collaborative prevention projects at other institutions. · Enforcement. The University will impose stricter disciplinary consequences up to and including suspension or expulsion for behaviors identified by the committee as dangerous (such as drinking games, alcohol-based hazing rituals and assaultive behavior while intoxicated). You can denounce such behavior and support the disciplinary consequences. You can also support the handling of off-campus alcohol violations in the same manner as on-campus violations, where permitted by University policy. · Responsibility. PEERS is all about responsibility -- responsibility for yourselves and for your fellow students. This is about drinking to excess, hard enough and fast enough to induce illness and even death. This is about talented young people who abandon all reason and put themselves and others at risk. Be responsible. Encourage responsibility in others. That's being smart. · Social Enrichment. There is fun without alcohol -- and lots of it. Look at the number of class-wide and cross-University events sponsored by student groups and those sponsored by the college houses and the Office of the Vice Provost of University Life through "Penn p.m." Suggestions are always welcome. Students want a space that is "dark, crowded, noisy [and] open late at night," and we will provide it, right in the heart of campus on Locust Walk. There is poetic justice, in my view, that this will be housed in a fraternity closed down for, among other things, failing to comply with the rules of its national organization regarding alcohol. And Penn is quickly becoming the new city-wide hot spot for late-night activity -- with several restaurants and coffeehouses, the new Barnes & Noble and more. Those who claim there is nothing to do need only look around them. That alcohol abuse is a complex issue does not come as a surprise to anyone. There is no silver bullet here, no one-size-fits-all solution. But as these multiple endeavors -- and similar efforts at other institutions -- are taking place, there is much responsibility that is ultimately, unavoidably yours. My colleagues and I will do our part to implement many of the suggestions of the special committee on alcohol abuse. PEERS is a way for you to do your part. Take up the challenge.

Please note All comments are eligible for publication in The Daily Pennsylvanian.