Pubdate: Tue, 20 Oct 1998 Source: Chronicle of Higher Education, The (US) Contact: http://chronicle.com/ Copyright: 1998 by The Chronicle of Higher Education Author: LEO REISBERG ALCOHOL AWARENESS WEEK BEGINS WITH CAMPAIGN TO FIGHT BINGE DRINKING Two student leaders on Monday announced a new national campaign in which college students would encourage their peers to stop abusing alcohol. At the same time, a coalition of college groups released a set of recommendations on how campuses can combat binge drinking. During a news conference here to mark the start of National Collegiate Alcohol Awareness Week, two members of a peer-education network focusing on alcohol-abuse prevention launched a new campaign, "Not Here," an effort to unite students in preventing alcohol-related deaths. The campaign includes: campus "speak-outs" in which students would voice their concerns about alcohol abuse and tell their peers that high-risk drinking is not the norm; public-service announcements that advise students what to do if a friend has had too much to drink; and "friend cards" that students can carry in their wallets as a pledge that they will help an intoxicated friend. "Students are realizing that they are the ones who need to take action," said Stacey Strong, a senior at Hastings College in Nebraska and a trustee of the BACCHUS and GAMMA Peer Education Network. The news conference was held by the Inter-Association Task Force on Alcohol and Other Substance Abuse Issues, a coalition of higher-education associations, which released a 28-page booklet that included guidelines to change the drinking culture on campuses, provide comprehensive health education, and limit advertising of alcoholic beverages on campus. Many of the guidelines were deliberately left open-ended as a way of "respecting the appropriateness of each college and university to make individual decisions about campus life," the booklet says. Among its general recommendations, the coalition says that colleges should define binge drinking clearly, hold policy violators accountable for their behavior, spend money on alcohol education and enforcement, remind students of their individual responsibility for their actions, and work with students and local communities to fight alcohol abuse. The group also offers a "model campus alcohol policy," which simply suggests that such policies include a "broad but succinct" philosophical statement, a summary of state and local laws, and institutional rules. Specific recommendations include prohibiting drinking games at social events and banning alcohol from recruitment activities, such as fraternity rush. Although the coalition suggests guidelines that would limit alcohol advertising on campuses, including at sports events, it doesn't make any recommendations about whether colleges should bar such advertising. But Donna E. Shalala, U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services, used the news conference to reiterate her view that colleges should ban alcohol ads at sporting events. "American higher education must break the connection between alcohol and college sports," said Ms. Shalala, who has called on colleges to bar alcohol advertising in university publications and athletic facilities and ban sponsorship of intercollegiate athletics events by alcohol manufacturers. - --- Checked-by: Don Beck