Three Northwestern freshmen were transported to the hospital for alcohol-related reasons during this year’s Wildcat Welcome Week, an increase from the zero students sent during last year’s new student activities.
According to Dean of Students Burgwell Howard, the freshmen were aided by other students, community assistants, and community service officers, and all were discharged and returned to campus.
Howard said he is concerned by the increase.
“I’m disappointed that three is higher than zero,” Howard said. ‘I don’t want to see anyone go to the hospital particularly with issues pertaining to alcohol, especially freshmen.”
Last year’s zero transports were, even according to administrators and health educators on campus, something of a surprise. Years previous to the 2010 Wildcat Welcome Week saw six and four students, respectively, sent to the hospital for alcohol-related reasons.
“In the past, we’ve almost always had alcohol transports during Wildcat Welcome, but this year we didn’t have any,” Lisa Currie, director of Health Promotion and Wellness, said in a Daily article last September.
Though last year’s absence of transports followed the Spring Quarter 2010 implementation of Red Watch Band, an alcohol education program created in memory of an NU student who died of alcohol poisoning in 2008, Howard and other campus officials were hesitant to attribute the good news to any specific program.
Since 2010, NU peer advisors have been required to participate in the Red Watch Band training.
Though disappointed in the jump, Howard said it is not necessarily indicative of an increase in dangerous drinking habits.
Both Alcohol and Other Drug Prevention Coordinator Susan Cushman and Howard said the increase could also demonstrate students are more willing to report cases of risky drinking behaviors of friends.
“I want students looking out for other students,” Howard said.
Weinberg senior Myrtie Williams completed the Red Watch Band training in 2010. For Williams, the program helped her to reflect on what she should have done during her sophomore year when a close friend had alcohol poisoning.
Though her friend recovered in the morning, Williams said, in retrospect, she would have made a different decision.
“Knowing what I know now, I definitely would have taken her to the hospital,” Williams said.
Along with the Red Watch Band training, NU offers workshops dedicated to raising awareness about alcohol-related issues, such as Drinking Culture Close Up and Where’s My Line. These programs cover issues ranging from reacting to alcohol-induced emergencies to changing the drinking culture of student groups.
According to Cushman, preliminary results from surveys taken by NU students who have undergone Red Watch Band training show they are more confident in being able to identify alcohol risks and more likely to help out in alcohol emergency situations after training.
“Our programs are really geared towards informing students and supporting students in making informed decisions if they choose to use alcohol,” Cushman said.
Jeffrey Sunshine, father of SESP freshman Matthew Sunshine who died due to alcohol poisoning in his NU dorm room in 2008, said he is wary as to whether more students are really helping others in high-risk drinking situations. Sunshine’s wife, Suzanne Fields, piloted the first Red Watch Band program at Stony Brook University following her son’s death.
“It appears to be just a guess and he (Howard) has no empirical data which he’s cited to support,” Sunshine said of Howard’s theory more students are calling for help in dangerous drinking situations.
Sunshine has a notoriously tense relationship with NU. Following Matthew Sunshine’s death, the University came to a no-fault $2-million settlement with Jeffrey Sunshine and agreed to a 10-part non-economic rider intended to promote alcohol education and revise the University’s alcohol policy.
At the end of last spring, Sunshine said the University was lagging in completing several of the terms listed in the rider. The University denied those claims.
But both Sunshine and administrators lauded the University’s decision last May to join the Learning Collaborative on High-Risk Drinking, a group led by Dartmouth College President Jim Yong Kim. More than 15 other schools are part of the initiative, which met for the first time this summer. The meetings are intended to generate discussion of ways to curb unsafe drinking habits and promote alcohol education.
“The problem is this is an accepted social behavior (under-age drinking) at Northwestern and a lot of other schools,” Sunshine said.
Medill freshman Kalyn Kahler, who said she rarely drank before coming to college, now drinks about three times a week.
“It’s just because of the college atmosphere,” Kahler said. “I have more freedom here … I don’t have parents breathing down my neck.”
In order to create alternative weekend activities for both students who drink alcohol and those who do not, SESP senior Kirstin Nordhaus, along with 20 other students, is drafting a proposal to fund late-night, non-alcohol related activities for students between 10 p.m. and 1 a.m. on weekends. She said the proposal must be submitted to University administration for funding the activities, which are similar to programs implemented at other peer institutions.
“It’s important because it allows students to have an alternative to going out to parties or drinking in their dorm rooms,” said Nordhaus, who is also the NU representative for the Dartmouth Learning Collaborative on High-Risk Drinking. “At the same time, it provides an alternative that would be really fun and bring the community closer together.”
Building a community, Communication senior Sean Brennan said, is an important step in reducing the number of freshman drinkers on campus.
“I think that it’s up to the rest of campus to provide an environment where these students (freshmen) don’t need to go out and get wasted in order to feel like part of the Northwestern (community),” he said.
