National Collegiate Alcohol Awareness Week, which began Monday, has made Jasmine Greenamyer a busy person.
The alcohol, tobacco and other drug coordinator for Olin Health Center has been getting Greek Life, Residence Life, the Judicial Affairs Office and the Department of Police and Public Safety involved in raising awareness about alcohol use on campus. She’s pleased with the results.
“It’s really neat to see how many entities are participating in this,” said Greenamyer, who is also a health educator at Olin. “There are so many people coming to the table - DPPS, Greek Life, Residence Life.”
That momentum has carried into different aspects of campus life.
Judicial Affairs offers an alcohol, tobacco and other drug seminar for students who are under university order to attend or who have a personal interest in those issues. The seminars are offered year-round by appointment at a cost of $25 to students.
Charles Torpe, a prevention specialist with Judicial Affairs who helped develop the three-part seminar, said MSU’s initiatives have been effective in reducing the numbers for alcohol and other drug use.
“We’ve found that everyone has a blind spot in their beliefs, knowledge, attitudes and behaviors when it comes to alcohol and other drugs,” he said. “Our main purpose is to shed light on those blind spots and give students a wider knowledge base to make their choices from.”
But Judicial Affairs isn’t alone in its attempt to shed light on alcohol issues.
Greek Life and the Department of Police and Public Safety have been handing out wallet-sized cards that detail what steps to take to prevent death as a result of alcohol poisoning. The MSU Counseling Center will provide anonymous alcohol abuse screenings for students from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Wednesday through Friday.
Residence Life has been involved in the process as well. Residence halls have been holding individual programs for students.
Christine Engel, Wilson Hall director, said residence halls have a lot of freedom in deciding what programs to put on.
“Each hall does their own thing. It wasn’t necessarily mandated for us to do anything,” she said.
Engel’s hall held “Booze Bowl 2000” Tuesday night. “Booze Bowl 2000” is an alcohol trivia game which Engel got off of the Internet and tailored to issues relevant to MSU.
Engel recently came to MSU and said MSU’s efforts to reduce alcohol use are comparable to other schools.
National Alcohol Awareness Week runs through Friday. For more information, visit www.alcoholinfo.msu.edu or www.justthefacts.msu.edu.
