Student leaders are attempting to assess the effectiveness of the University’s alcohol policy as the community absorbs statistics showing a 25-percent increase in alcohol-related student hospital transports in the fall semester, as well as a 37-percent rise in alcohol-related incidents during New Student Orientation.
This week, the Interfraternity Council partnered with the Undergraduate Assembly to circulate a survey to the undergraduate population in order to measure the social habits and drinking practices of students.
IFC leaders are hoping the survey results will provide some insight into whether or not the alcohol policy, as it relates to the party registration system, is effective. Their concern is that the policy in its current form does little to protect undergraduates, and that it may cause students to gravitate toward unregulated environments where they are free to consume dangerous amounts of alcohol.
One of the University’s provisions in question is a policy prohibiting student organizations from serving hard alcohol at registered events.
“We would not be pursuing this initiative if we thought the current state of the undergraduate social sphere was on a positive trajectory,” Wharton junior and incoming IFC President Harris Heyer wrote in an e-mail. “But you don’t fix something until you know how broken it is.”
According to Heyer, a former Daily Pennsylvanian advertising representative, the IFC survey, though open to the public, was originally distributed using fraternity and sorority e-mail listservs. Now that the survey is being distributed by the UA, the entire undergraduate population will have the opportunity to participate, as the current policy, Heyer noted, “affects all student groups.”
So far, the IFC has received 800 responses from both Greek-affiliated and -unaffiliated students. The survey is tentatively scheduled to close Sunday night. IFC leaders will meet to discuss the results next week, possibly during Thanksgiving break.
“According to the cross tabulations, our unaffiliated students have similar habits to members of social extracurricular organizations,” Heyer wrote.
“Right now, I think it is safe to say that the vast majority of drinking at Penn is off campus and in an unregulated environment,” he added.
College Houses and Academic Services Director Leslie Delauter stated in an e-mail last week that she suspects the higher number of alcohol-related hospital transports is a result of “a combination of better reporting/data collection” as well as “perhaps some anxiety about the economy, job market, environment.”
While IFC leaders agree that better data collection may be a contributing factor to the rise in medical transports of this nature, both Heyer and College senior Dave Dobkin, the outgoing IFC vice president of strategic planning, say anxiety about the bad economy and job market probably don’t have much of an impact on students’ drinking practices.
“I would be more inclined to say that many college students simply enjoy drinking (a lot) on their free time,” Heyer wrote.
“If the University is to create a safe environment for students to enjoy events with alcohol, we must come to terms with the reality of drinking habits in college,” Heyer wrote. He added that a policy needs to be created “that reflects the demands of the Penn social scene.”
Dobkin concurred and wrote that although the IFC survey doesn’t cover alcohol-related medical transports, there is an obvious “relationship between alcohol behaviors and medical transports.”
“Logically, drinking in unregulated, risky environments increases the likelihood of alcohol-related medical transports,” Dobkin wrote.
