The Alcohol and Other Drug Taskforce met Friday December 4th. Primarily, our focus was on the presentation for the symposium titled "Examining Our Student Drinking Culture: A Look at the Culture Now and Ways We Can Improve It". Summarizing the two-day program scheduled for April 27th and 28th of 2010 (Tuesday and Wednesday) is as follows.
Night 1: Our Drinking Culture: A New Age Look at Alcohol Consumption
This night will examine the current drinking culture of this university and this city. It is important that we know where we are with alcohol as a community, not five or ten years ago, but today. We will learn about the effects of toxic drinking and the new studies being done that will help us determine the climate of our drinking culture. This night will also emphasize the importance of alcohol education. The goal of this night is to better understand where we are today so that we may improve our culture into the future.
Night 2: Chaning the Drinking Culture: Where to go from here?
This night will concentrate on current alcohol policy and discuss ideas for improving the drinking cuture in the future. We will get a physiological background on alcohol before we discuss the effects of the drinking age. The rest of the night will be panel-led discussion on city alcohol policy, and a comparative student look into the drinking cultures of our Big Ten and system neighbors. The goal of this night is to give us insight into the direction alcohol policy must take in light of current policy already in place, within the city and the university.
Some of the concerns brought up in discussion were consistency of student attendance, the venue it would be held at, and the equality of representation. Chances are it will be in a dormitory or somewhere like Grainger. Another related topic was food costs. Advertising and food were going to be the key ways to attract and maintain students. Lastly was equal representation. The issue was on our second day, we would have a returning guest, Dr. Kevin Strang, and a presentation from the The Amethyst Initiative Choose Responsibility group. Dr. Strang would give a physiological perspective on drinking and common misconceptions and one of the main points of the second guest is reasons to lower the drinking age. Some of the members of the AODT want to see a different speaker instead of Dr. Strang to fairly contrast the view of the Amethyst Initiative. A link for the schedule thus far will be added to this blog ASAP.
2 comments:
Wow great stuff with lot of good motivation. Hope every one will participate in this concern. Drug Rehab Website
I think that, as part of the new look at the drinking culture, we identify that drinking appears to be an inescapable aspect of this city's culture. We shouldn't misplace our attention by trying to prevent it but rather we should attempt to prevent abuses of it. There is a difference there in my mind.
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