The University has acquired another weapon in the crusade against underage drinking — an online course about the dangers of alcohol consumption.
AlcoholEdu, developed at the University of Illinois in 1998, is a website that consists of video clips, questions and interactive case studies.
The site was first promoted earlier this month in an e-mail to freshmen and sophomores from Daniel Silverman, director of health services.
"The trustees of the University are very interested in this program," said Lauren Robinson-Brown '85, director of communications.
The promotion of AlcoholEdu is part of the University's multilateral campaign against underage drinking. Started in 1999, the trustees alcohol initiative has provided millions of dollars for alcohol-free activities, health resources and awareness campaigns around campus.
"We try to reach students in many ways," Robinson-Brown said. "There are different angles for getting at the problem."
The online program educates students, while assessing their current knowledge of how to deal with various scenarios involving alcohol. Questions evaluate how adept students are at identifying drunkenness in themselves and friends and how prepared they are to deal with alcohol-related problems should they arise.
Awareness
The educational material covered includes teaching students to determine their own drinking limits considering their size and gender, remain sexually responsible when under the influence and intervene when a friend suffers from alcohol poisoning or is accosted for unwanted sexual relations while drunk.
As an incentive to complete the course, the University is offering free movie passes to the Garden Theatre. Students are asked to submit answers to McCosh Health Center by November 3.
Though the website, OutsideTheClassroom.com, says the course could be completed in 60 to 90 minutes, Gina Baral, coordinator of health promotion services, said it would likely take two and a half hours.
In the past, the University's trustees have used posters to promote responsible drinking. Similar posters will soon line campus walkways and cover dormitory bulletin boards to encourage students to use AlcoholEdu.
AlcoholEdu has already been implemented at the University of Connecticut, where this year's incoming freshmen were required to take the three-hour course online and submit it for evaluation at the university's health center. Other schools using the program are Dartmouth College, Duke Univer-sity and Villanova University.
Bliss Bernardo, an employee of UConn's health center said it is still too soon to determine whether the course has had a significant impact, but she is optimistic.
"It'll tell them some of the consequences of what they're doing, should they choose to do it," she said.
Baral said the University does not plan to make AlcoholEdu mandatory for incoming freshmen.
Rather, the emphasis is on the dissemination of knowledge, she said.
"It's an educational program with evaluation," Baral said. "This is not a policy in any way. We just want to give students information."
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