After years of research and student-geared programs, The University of Mississippi continues to combat college drinking and alcohol misuse.
“Alcohol is a difficult drug because it’s legal,” said adjunct professor Catherine Woodyard, who recently received her doctorate in health and kinesiology with an emphasis in health behavior and health promotion from Ole Miss.
While a student at the university, Woodyard performed extensive research on the drinking culture and misperceptions among students.
Her 2008-09 research delved into the misperceptions students have about drinking, such as the percentage of students who drank alcohol during home football games or the percentage of students who participated in heavy/binge drinking.
Woodyard and fellow researchers Jeffrey Hallam and John Bentley found that college students tend to overestimate just how much their peers really drink.
For instance, while Woodyard’s results showed only about 29 percent of students got drunk at least once during home football games, the “perceived norm,” which was determined by asking respondents to “state what percentage of students at their university they thought engaged in the stated behavior,” was just over 60 percent.
However, even Woodyard said the study was harder to conduct because “during college, it’s always a party.”
After completing her study, Woodyard and the Office of Health Promotion at Ole Miss worked to educate students at the university about the dangers and long-term consequences of alcohol misuse.
“You can have fun without getting out of control,” Woodyard said.
Erin Murphy-Cromeans, assistant director of student health for health promotion, said the Office of Health Promotion has big goals for students’ drinking habits at Ole Miss.
“Our purpose is to decrease high-risk drinking and its negative consequences among all students,” she said. “We also want to build healthier attitudes and practices regarding alcohol use and provide leadership in adopting and developing practices in prevention.”
Jessica Goodson, coordinator of intramural sports and sports clubs for the Department of Campus Recreation, said the organization’s alcohol-free activities such as intramural sports and Ole Miss Outdoors weekend trips are a “big deterrent” to student drinking.
Although these programs, along with others such as the alcohol-free residence hall policy for students of all ages and residence hall programming like the Hotty Toddy Potty Times, encourage students to avoid alcohol misuse and abuse, Woodyard said the drinking problem hasn’t completely disappeared.
“I don’t see AlcoholEdu as the best way to go about teaching students,” she said. “People write it off and do it just because they have to do it.”
Goodson added that Thursday evenings in particular pose a challenge for intramural sports and other programming because Thursday is known for being the “big party night.”
Some of the solutions Woodyard suggests include higher admission requirements, reminders about the availability of cabs in Oxford and more administrative support for research.
“I think too many parents and administration alike don’t talk honestly and openly about the issue of alcohol, so students don’t understand the severity of it,” she said. “There’s just got to be a better way to reach the student body, especially the freshmen that are quote, unquote ‘on their own.’”
Despite Woodyard’s worries, Murphy-Cromeans cited upcoming and anticipated programs the Office of Health Promotion looks to offer Ole Miss students, including a new Alcohol and Drug Education Sanction known as RebelADE (A for alcohol, D for drug, E for education) and the hopeful return of Young People’s AA Meeting/Al-Anon Meeting.
Of course, Murphy-Cromeans said each program and policy directed at college students holds its own weight in helping the university overcome its party school reputation.
“No one program is more successful than the other,” she said. “Each prevention method plays a different role in combating alcohol use, misuse and abuse culture that all college campuses face.”
Murphy-Cromeans also said the important thing in remedying the drinking culture at Ole Miss is to help students understand the meaning of responsible drinking.
“We are working very hard to battle this alcohol culture and stigma the university and Ole Miss family has,” she said.
And with the university’s recent drop in the popular Princeton Review’s party school rankings from No. 3 in 2012 to No. 14 in 2013, Woodyard said the drinking culture at Ole Miss is indeed changing.
“I think it’s encouraging. People are starting to realize that we’re not just a party school,” she said. “People are beginning to see Ole Miss in another light.”
— Mara Joffe
