O-week coordinators provide more choices for incoming students
New training sessions will equip college leaders with tools for reducing high-risk drinking

BY JESSICA STARK
Rice News staff

With the start of fall semester on the horizon, Rice University students are bringing another flock of Owls into the family during this week’s student-managed orientation for freshmen and other new students, called O-week. This year O-week coordinators — students selected by their peers to lead orientation activities — are better have equipped themselves to deal with some of the challenges student leaders face.

Wellness Center offers CHOICES Rice University Wellness Center offers training sessions throughout the year to any full-time Rice student who wants to participate in CHOICES, an evidence-based, two-hour program that focuses on making safer decisions about alcohol consumption. Rather than focusing on abstinence, CHOICES encourages a harm-reduction approach to drinking. Students discuss and write in journals about facts, risks and norms associated with alcohol. And they are equipped with information, strategies and skills to make — and help others make — wise decisions. To participate in a CHOICES training session, e-mail wellness@rice.edu. To learn more about CHOICES, visit http://www.changecompanies.net/choices.php.

Among other preparations, in July coordinators participated in training sessions aimed at discouraging high-risk drinking. Hosted by Rice’s Wellness Center, the training sessions explained the risks of excessive alcohol use and taught the student leaders techniques to help them help others make healthy decisions.

“Our goal is to prepare the leaders in the residential colleges to have well-informed, consistent discussions about drinking,” said Emily Page, director of the Wellness Center. “We thought a great way to do that would be to give those leaders the tools to facilitate a dialogue with their peers about alcohol use.”

The adult leadership team at each residential college — masters, resident associates and fellows, and college coordinators — were also invited to attend the sessions. Because residential colleges are the hub of social and intellectual life at Rice, Page said, it was important to start there to create a culture of responsible decisions about alcohol.

A faculty master, who is assigned to a college and lives in an adjacent house, helps cultivate a variety of cultural and intellectual interests among the students and supports the system of self-government. Resident associates (RAs) are faculty or staff members who also live in the college communities and help students navigate university life. College coordinators are Rice employees who help the college and its leaders with day-to-day duties and support students. Both of the new colleges, Duncan and McMurtry, also have head resident fellows who, in addition to providing support to the masters and students, will help the colleges define and build their identities.

“The training is important because it is the first step in opening up the dialogue between students at Duncan and other members of the residential colleges,” said Marnie Hylton, head resident fellow at Duncan College along with her husband, Luis Duno-Gottberg, associate professor of Spanish. “After speaking with students about their attitudes and how they perceive the college climate in terms of alcohol, I have a better starting point when opening up the dialogue in the future.”

The Wellness Center will continue to offer training sessions throughout the year to any full-time Rice student who wants to participate. The training sessions are also required for all students who serve alcohol at college parties.

A harm-reduction approach

The training sessions are based on CHOICES, a two-hour program that focuses on making safer decisions about alcohol consumption. Rather than focusing on abstinence, the program encourages a harm-reduction approach to drinking. Students discuss and write in journals about facts, risks and norms associated with alcohol. And they are equipped with information, strategies and skills to make — and help others make — wise decisions.

“Our general goal for O-week on a campuswide level, and definitely on a college-based level, is to help the students be more aware of the choices they’ll have as college students,” said Kevin Tran, a junior and the O-week coordinator for Martel College. His training has taught him to talk with students about the consequences to the body and mind of alcohol and drugs rather than just talk about legal ramifications.

“I feel like this approach from O-week and its multitude of personnel gives off less of an impression of authority and more of guidance,” Tran said.

CHOICES is designed to curb binge and high-risk drinking, as well as other unhealthy behaviors, by arming students with accurate information, providing them with a menu of coping strategies and guiding them through a self-reflective process to call attention to, then change, high-risk behavior. Among other topics, the program reviews facts about alcohol, such as absorption and oxidation; factors affecting blood alcohol concentration (BAC); effects of BAC and tolerance; the biphasic effect of alcohol and the cultural myth that if some alcohol makes people feel good, more will make them feel better; risky drinking practices, activities, settings and social situations; and alcohol-poisoning risk and response.

The program also educates participants about helpful resources within the university. Sharon O’Leary, Lovett College coordinator, said the training has enabled her to be more prepared when students have concerns about alcohol for themselves or others.

“I think I will be better able to listen and refer students to the appropriate resources and be less inclined to impose my opinion or try to fix the situation myself,” she said.

Less drinking than assumed

She hopes the new information from the session will be spread to all students and that peer pressure will lead to safe behavior. CHOICES emphasizes student safety combined with personal responsibility. One goal of the program is to encourage students to re-evaluate their preconceived notions, knowledge and decisions about alcohol.

“Most Rice students have a pretty good understanding of the facts and figures about alcohol,” Page said. “They understand how alcohol and high-risk behaviors can affect their goals. However, most students tend to underestimate the number of individuals who do not drink and overestimate the number who drink excessively.”

Page said that’s a common phenomenon on college campuses because most students assume that the behavior they observe or hear about is indicative of behavior for all students. They are more likely to talk about the anomaly than the rule, she said.

“A lot of the information did not surprise me — I knew Rice students acted pretty responsibly in general,” Tran said. “But I didn’t know the precise numbers.” 

Recent data from the National College Health Assessment shows that while Rice students thought 21.8 percent of their peers used alcohol daily, only 0.2 percent reported having done so. Surveyed students guessed that 2.3 percent of their peers abstained from alcohol, but 20.3 percent reported they do not use alcohol.

The data was collected in 2008 by the National College Health Assessment, a nationally standardized tool developed by the American College Health Association. The Wellness Center administered the survey to all Rice undergraduate students, and 46 percent responded.

The data also showed that the majority of drinkers at Rice are responsible. In addition to the 20.3 percent who choose not to drink, another 70.4 percent said they drink in moderation. The data allowed Rice’s Wellness Center to tailor its approach to reducing high-risk drinking.
“We were able to develop and implement educational programs like CHOICES that will meet students where they are to help them make safe decisions and challenge their high-risk choices,” Page said. “Instead of preaching, we’re able to spend time talking about how alcohol can affect many important life goals and variables.”

A mental health professional and social worker with the Houston Independent School District, Hylton said that the leadership team at Duncan College has incorporated what they learned into O-week plans. Spurred by a discussion from CHOICES, the team decided to design and implement more alcohol-free college activities. Hylton said the team is facilitating discussions during O-week about responsible alcohol use.

“Through these discussions and the other activities we have planned students will come to know that we are here to help and guide them and that this open, nonjudgmental space exists for them at Duncan College,” Hylton said.

CHOICES was created by Alan Marlatt and George Parks of the Change Companies. The program is based on research by the University of Washington Addictive Behaviors Research, which has been recognized by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism and Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration as the leading alcohol abuse prevention approach for college students.