Alcohol policy focuses on wellness, not punishment

Alcohol policy focuses on wellness, not punishment

By Meredith Porter
The Reflector

ATLANTA
November 6, 1998

(U-WIRE) MISSISSIPPI STATE-Mississippi State University offers a creative way to deal with underage drinking and drinking on campus.

First time drinking offenders caught with alcohol on campus could end up in a $15 program in which they must spend an hour with counselor Deborah Jackson and pass a test.

If students have a behavioral infraction and alcohol possession, or are two time drinking offenders, they are put into a $25 program called Alcohol and Other Drug Education Program. It meets every Friday for a month from 2 to 4 p.m. in the Joe Frank Sanderson Center. Third time offenders are suspended for a semester.

"The alcohol and other drug education program tries to stress education of alcohol," Mike White, Dean of Students, said. "Our goal is to educate rather than punish."

Parents of the students enrolled in the class are not contacted. "We try to treat the students as adults," Dave Remy, assistant dean of students, said. The Department of Recreational Sports sponsors the classes, and Jackson, a full-time student working on a doctorate in counselor education, teaches it. "This is a very unique and wonderful program because it focuses on a wellness philosophy, not on punishment," Jackson said.

The goal of the class is to teach students to maximize their potential and stay out of trouble and to supply them with truthful information on alcohol. The class involves the piloting of an interactive CD program called Alcohol 101. This program takes the student's information, including height and weight, and places the student in an interactive party. The student can go to the bar and order drinks. The program will tell the students what their blood alcohol level at certain times throughout the evening would be. The class also involves a lot of group discussion. "This is not a lecture," Jackson said.

The discussions cover topics from the properties of alcohol and the physiological effects it has on the body, to explanations about the difference between the students' assumptions about alcohol and what it actually does to the body. The class also talks about the legal consequences of drinking and potential drinking habits.

"Students seem to worry more about getting in trouble than getting help," Jackson said.

Copyright © 1998 by Gregory S. Scherrer, Editor and by the Student Publications Board

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