Carleton published its Alcohol Awareness Strategy on April 9, outlining the university’s intention to promote safety and increase collaboration with campus groups around alcohol use.
The plan’s 17 recommendations include improving transparency of the university’s judicial process, promoting parents to talk about responsible drinking with their children, and potentially adopting new advertising initiatives, like Syracuse University’s “Stupid Drink” campaign.
“We had to get a little creative,” said Ryan Flannagan, Carleton’s director of student affairs.
The strategy targets binge drinking on campus and during university-sanctioned events. The intention is to educate first-year students on responsible drinking before they move off campus, according to the report.
The report said “data suggests that Carleton students’ alcohol use and knowledge regarding alcohol are on par with their Canadian peers.”
“There is the opportunity to improve those numbers,” Flannagan said.
The report indicated that “event-specific” strategies will be established to manage events like Capital Hoops, Halloween, and St. Patrick’s Day.
Capital Hoops, the annual basketball game between Carleton and the University of Ottawa, is mentioned several times in the report as an example of a high-risk drinking event.
Several students were denied entrance to the 2013 Capital Hoops game because of their intoxication, the report said.
An “event-specific” strategy was put on trial at the 2014 Capital Hoops event, when Foot Patrol volunteers were placed on busses taking students to the game, and there was communication beforehand “that excessive drinking is not going to get you into the game,” Flannagan said.
Unlike the 2013 event, Flannagan said there were no complaints from the Canadian Tire Centre and no students refused entrance due to intoxication.
For other events, like St. Patricks Day and Halloween, Flannagan said the strategies for these events would use “more passive” methods, such as social media and newsletters.
The report’s projected outcomes include more joint initiatives, more data collection, less students binge drinking—defined as more than six drinks in a night, or drinking 10-30 times in 30 days—and fewer drinking-related incident reports in residence.
The strategy was produced after a year of regular meetings between approximately eight representatives from departments including university safety and health and counselling, Flannagan said.
