Taking the alcohol out of a night of drinking, partying

Hold the vodka, leave out the rum and throw away the beer: There's no alcohol at this party. On Saturday, around 50 freshmen gathered in English House's Class of 1938 lounge for "Make Your Own Mocktail," part of the Penn PM series designed to provide students with non-alcoholic social activities. Inside the lounge, students made themselves drinks consisting of ginger ale, pina colada mix and strawberry daiquiri mix. The program was intended to convey messages presented in Penn's Alcohol 101 CD-ROM, mailed to freshmen this summer, according to the event's organizers. This year's volunteer event coordinator was King's Court Resident Advisor Lily Ng, a Wharton senior. Ng said the event was intended to create a "party atmosphere" for students to become educated about underage drinking. "We think it is a very good way of teaching them what is high risk and what is low risk drinking," she said, adding that she thought the message in the CD was an important one. Some students who attended were not nearly as enthusiastic about the message, however. College freshman Stephanie Fong, for one, said she does not see underage drinking as a major issue on campus. "I don't see the problem unless you make it a problem," Fong said. She did not believe that "Make Your own Mocktail" would have any effect on underage drinking on campus. Engineering freshman Brian Figura said he did not attend the party voluntarily. "Our RA declared it to be a mandatory event," he said. And College freshman Jeff Weston said he believes that, in spite of the program, people will do what they want. "I think if the person was going to drink, they'd drink," he said. Alcohol 101 is a relatively new CD-ROM designed to educate Penn students about the dangerous effects alcohol can have on the human body. The CD-ROM, which came out of a recommendation made in April 1999 by the Working Group on Alcohol Abuse, enables students to create a virtual person, and watch the toll alcohol takes on a person's ability to think and act. RA Suyash Paliwal, a first-year MBA student, also helped to put together the two-hour program. Paliwal said that although this year is the first for "Make Your Own Mocktail," similar events have been put together in the past to discuss underage drinking. Last year, for instance, two students developed a program entitled, "Who Wants to be a Binge Drinker?" to reach out to students. Paliwal feels that underage drinking on campus is worth discussing. "It has been a matter of concern but not a problem," he said. "We care about the students and we want them to be safe."