Students become aware of the dangers of drinking

Georgia College & State University faculty and staff members intend to educate students during Alcohol Awareness Week.

Alcohol Awareness Week runs from Monday, Oct. 28 to Friday, Nov. 1.

“We are trying to educate students on responsible alcohol use. We are not trying to tell students ‘don’t drink, drinking is bad.’ What we are trying to do is educate students so that if they make that decision, we have provided them with enough information, so that they make a healthy decision,” said Chad Clark, assistant director for Residence Education of University Housing.

According to Clark, this information is on the realities of drinking, consequences and alternatives to consuming alcohol.

“We are trying to get as much information into the hands of students that we can, so that students can make an informed decision,” said Clark.

Alcohol Awareness is usually held along with the National Collegiate Alcohol Awareness Week of Monday, Oct. 21 through Friday, Oct. 25. However, GC&SU Campus Life Team (Counseling Services, The GIVE Center, Multicultural Affairs, Student Activities and University Housing) decided to hold it one week later because of the Broadening Horizons Festival.

“We (Campus Life team) decided there wasn’t a big push last year. There wasn’t a concentrated effort to bring all the individual programs together into one big event,” said Clark. “In the future, I would anticipate that more departments would become involved, maybe a university wide planning process and hopefully bigger programs.”

Dr. Harshbarger, Campus Life Team, Residence Housing Association and individual departments funded the programs for one week.

“We did research on other campuses and universities across the country on what they do for alcohol awareness week, and we checked the NCAA web site and looked at what they had done in the past. Then we compiled a list and came up with ideas and decided on the programs,” said Clark.
“We are trying to be more rounded than programmatic and just talk about the effects of alcohol, so there are some community service activities in there. For example, the window wash, where students and the GIVE center will go down to the Centennial Center and wash windshields and leave a little note saying ‘We did you a favor by washing your windshield, now do us a favor by not drinking and driving.’”

On Monday night, there is a mock date rape trial. The trial will focus around the idea of consent, alcohol use, Georgia Law and relevance.

“It’s going to be a very gray case. Some people are going to walk in and think he’s guilty, and some people are going to say he’s innocent. We are trying to make it gray so that when students go in there they can see it and interpret it,” said Clark. “The jury for that trail is not going to be scripted. This is the first year; we’ve tried anything like this.”

On Tuesday, the local fire department, police departments, other city departments and Jones County will entertain the community with ‘Grim Reality.’

“We are trying to support and encouraging people to go,” said Clark.

Grim reapers will guide participants through eight scenes of “realistic” images, said Clark. These scenes will include car accidents, drive-by shootings and a high school graduation. Participants can purchase luminaries in honor of others and sign pledges for responsible drinking.

On Wednesday, GC&SU will discuss the realities of drinking and its effects during the ‘Day of Dialogue.’

“We are asking faculty across campus to incorporate some part of alcohol awareness into their classes so that the day, the entire campus will be discussing alcohol,” said Clark.

Residence halls will also have interactive programs for residents to attend and learn more about alcohol.

During the week, red ribbons, the color of MADD (Mothers against Drunk Driving) and alcohol awareness, will be available.

In various places around campus, there will be silhouettes and a description of a person who has died because of alcohol to indicate the dangers of drinking irresponsibility.

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Oct 25 2002. Filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry