New class focuses on alcohol

Penn has been battling for years to control underage drinking and cut down on the number of alcohol-related illnesses. Now, health educators and faculty members are teaming up on a new tactic: a General Honors seminar designed to teach students about drinking responsibly. The course, entitled "Seminar on Reduction of Alcohol Abuse Among College Students," will focus on defining the problem of alcohol abuse and will develop strategies to cope with it, according to Anthropology Professor Frank Johnston. Johnston is co-teaching the course with three other instructors –– Susan Villari, Kate Ward-Gaus and Kurt Conklin –– who are all staff members at the Office of Health Education. The seminar's main goal, according to Conklin, is "to change the campus culture around alcohol." Alcohol abuse on college campuses drew nationwide attention in 1997 following the binge-drinking deaths of several students at schools including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Louisiana State University. At Penn, President Judith Rodin has made the topic a stated priority. Conklin kicked off the 15-person class yesterday with an activity called "Find someone who?," in which the students had to ask each other questions about their drug and alcohol experiences. Tasks included finding someone who "has 'babysat' a friend who drank/drugged too much," or "likes Penn's on-campus social scene." The students quickly began to speak frankly about their own experiences with drugs and alcohol on campus. Several of the seminar's participants said they were surprised by the openness of the discussion which ensued. College sophomore Liz Downey said she was surprised by the candor with which Johnston discussed "his own personal experiences in college." Downey commented that there was "a liberal frame of mind in the class that really surprised me," adding that she was happy to find that the class was not composed only of "do-gooders." College sophomore John Buchanan said he was also surprised by the approach of the course. "It's not as anti-alcohol as I thought it would be," Buchanan said, adding that the class is "not a bunch of people preaching about the evils of alcohol." Buchanan applauded the seminar's emphasis of "teaching people to drink responsibly rather than saying, 'don't drink at all'." Both the instructors and students enjoyed what Buchanan called the "broad range of people in the class." Conklin said he was "excited" by the class's diversity. "It is clear that we have students who do drink and those that do not drink -- those that enjoy the social life on campus and those that do not," Conklin said. The seminar, which Ward-Gaus said is unique at Penn, will use a research tactic which Johnston calls "participatory action research." According to Johnston, participatory action research requires the members of a group to be actively involved in remedying a problem, as opposed to letting outside researchers investigate it.