Two local colleges are accelerating their efforts to curb underage and binge drinking at a time when alcohol-related incidents have landed one of them in the news.
Last month, F&M temporarily shut down college-approved Greek system parties, said Dean of Students Kent Trachte.
Also at the beginning of the school year, the school reactivated a drug-and-alcohol task force that F&M President John Fry launched after he was elected president in 2002.
Ironically, a short time later, on Sept. 20, officers from the the college's Public Safety office busted 47 underage drinkers in Thomas Hall.
Then, a week ago, Philip E. Rehders, a 2008 F&M graduate and former swim team champion who had been visiting friends on campus, was found unresponsive in the residence hall.
The 22-year-old Rumson, N.J., man was pronounced dead early on the morning of Oct. 5 at Lancaster General Hospital.
Toxicology test results won't be available for several weeks, according to the county coroner's office.
But city police said in a statement that Rehders had evidently consumed alcoholic beverages before his death.
Trachte said he had "no reason to disagree with that police observation."
The college is grieving the young man's tragic death, said Trachte, who added that several busloads of students were scheduled to travel to New Jersey this weekend to attend Rehder's viewing and funeral.
Rehder's death will possibly help shape the recommendations that the task force is charged with issuing by the middle of next spring, the dean added. "I suspect there's a good chance it will factor into our dialogue."
Mixed drinkersThat dialogue has been wide-ranging and includes controversial elements, such as the three-month-old Amethyst Initiative encouraging higher-education leaders to discuss student alcohol problems in the context of the 21-year-old legal drinking age.
Elizabethtown College is the only local institution to have signed on to that initiative.
Franklin & Marshall officials are discussing it.
Elizabethtown was on fall break last week and Dean of Students Marianne Calenda was not immediately available for comment.
All local colleges and universities have in place anti-alcohol-abuse policies that include education and counseling programs, as well as disciplinary measures such as probation and suspension.
Like F&M, Millersville has been fine-tuning its approach.
School officials discussed alcohol-related issues Thursday during a first-ever meeting with local police chiefs, said Aminta Hawkins Breaux, vice president for student affairs.
The school is trying to enhance its town-and-gown relationship, according to Breaux.
MU disciplines resident students who imbibe illegally as well as those who drink and raise a ruckus off campus, she said.
The school maintains its own police force, Breaux added, and officers are required to prosecute student violators through the judicial system.
This year for the first time, Breaux said, the university is notifying parents immediately by phone when a student gets into trouble.
Still, she added, teaching students the pitfalls of intoxication remains the top priority.
A campus coalition that helps problem drinkers and drug abusers began about a year ago, Breaux said.
She added that a very small percentage of MU students fall into those categories but did not specify a number.
The school's three-year-old Choices orientation program gives freshmen the low-down on alcohol, Breaux said. Refreshers are available throughout their college careers.
"We want to disabuse students of that 'Animal House' mentality that everyone is having toga parties and that's what college is like."
The message might be sinking in, though it's taken years.
Some studies by higher education interests and the government indicate that student binge drinking increased from 1985 through 2005 then tapered off, Trachte said.
Seeming to confirm the downward curve at F&M are annual student surveys conducted by Jack Heller, associate professor of psychology, and Christine Conway, clinical director of counseling services.
In those samples, Trachte said, the percentage of students reporting "high-risk" drinking behavior peaked in 2003 at 20 percent and has since declined to 11 percent.
The ratio of self-described nondrinkers expanded from 20 to about 23 percent, Trachte said.
F&M defines high-risk individuals as those who consume 20 or more drinks a week.
Trachte said male students at F&M and other colleges typically drink two or three times as much alcohol per week as females.
While the Greek system includes plenty of moderate drinkers, he added, fraternity members are "disproportionately" represented in the high-risk drinking group.
Trachte said F&M shut down Greek-system socials this semester because the frats have not adequately screened out underage drinkers at their functions, among other complaints.
Frat and sorority leaders are writing a new self-policing protocol that he'll review this week, he said.
Meanwhile, Trachte said, light or moderate drinkers who go on a binge continue to be a significant worry.
Anecdotally, many of the kids who overdo it and have to be checked out at the hospital are freshmen who are unfamiliar with alcohol, he said.
Such behavior is hard to predict.
In 1991, after Johan Hans Holmkvist overdosed on F&M's campus and was pronounced dead at a hospital, fellow students described him as a nice guy who was "most responsible."
The 22-year-old student from Sweden was found face down, unbreathing, in Thomas Hall, according to newspaper records. His blood contained four times the legal limit of alcohol.
Much has changed since those days.
Three years ago, for example, F&M began developing a College House System to make residence halls more homey.
Though he can't prove a correlation, Trachte said, there have been "markedly" fewer alcohol-based parties in residential buildings since then.
The series of student busts Sept. 20, which included a raid on North Mary Street, "was very anomalous for us," Trachte said.
He said students have sat down with school officials to discuss the problem.
Kids' perception of drinking continues to be a big piece of the puzzle, noted Elizabethtown College spokesman Barry Freidly and MU's Breaux.
Online networking sites that some students use to glorify partying have added to the challenge for colleges, Breaux said.
"The pictures students put out there might lead others to think everybody does this. No, everybody is not doing it."
Jon Rutter is a staff writer for the Sunday News. His e-mail address is jrutter@lnpnews.com.
(676)
