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stanford measures up favorably
against national yardsticks of student alcohol use.
For example, 44 percent of undergraduates in a nationwide
survey engaged in binge drinking at least once in a
two-week period, compared with 27 percent on the Farm.
That’s what worries Ralph Castro, the alcohol
and drug educator at Vaden Health Center.
“Don’t look at the data,” he says.
“We have 15,000 students on this campus. If one
student dies, [whether the other 14,999 drank responsibly]
means nothing. It would be a huge blow to the entire
University.”
To help get that message out, the Alcohol Advisory Board
commissioned two of its student members to write a guide
to alcohol awareness. What’s Your Policy?,
a 73-page spiral-bound booklet, aims to be a comprehensive
resource that pulls together information from a wide
range of campus offices, including Residential Education,
the Dean of Students Office and Vaden. Residence staff
members introduced the guide to entering freshmen during
Orientation.
“The students wanted it to be a complete guide
that looked at taking care of yourself and looking out
for others, that gave proactive, positive messages,
but also did dispel and demystify what happens behind
the scenes with students and Judicial Affairs, or organizations
that get put on alcohol probation,” says Castro,
who is chairing the advisory board this year. Erik Wong,
‘03, and Moses Pounds, ‘04, wrote the first
draft; Castro and Health Promotion Services director
Carole Pertofsky edited it and added some material.
“The student voice is still there,” Castro
says. No kidding; witness the discussion of front loading,
or drinking a lot in a short amount of time: “Although
it may initially seem cool, most people visit the ‘porcelain
god’ about an hour or two later.”
The advisory board then turned to Thunder Factory, a
San Mateo-based marketing firm, to put what Castro calls
an “edgy stamp” on the guide. Splashy orange
palm trees decorate the cover; stylized faces with dramatic
expressions delineate sections inside. “We knew
we had achieved what we wanted to achieve when administrators
went, ‘Oh, no’ and students went, ‘Oh,
yes,’” Castro says.
The guide, which will be posted online later this year,
discusses alcohol’s effects on health, party planning
and student organizations’ responsibilities, University
policy and California law. Student anecdotes relate
cautionary tales and illustrate different choices about
whether, how and when to drink—the personal “policies”
the authors suggest each reader create. The booklet
pays particular attention to the use of hard alcohol—on
the rise at Stanford, Castro says—and stresses
students’ responsibility to take care of one another
on a residential campus.
“It was made by us. It wasn’t marketed to
us,” Castro says. “We know the messages
in there work for our students—they were drafted
by our students for our students.” |
