Provost Jim Dean commits to curb student binge drinking

Provost Jim Dean said he wants to curb binge drinking — but he doesn’t have a plan just yet.

Both Dean and Winston Crisp, vice chancellor for student affairs, hope to put together a team to begin thinking about how to address the issue of binge drinking on campus. Dean said this is not an issue that is pervasive specifically at UNC, but is a national problem that should be addressed everywhere.

While there are medical dangers associated with binge drinking, Dean said changing the social aspect of it is essential.

“It is important to try to get students to understand that it’s not true that everybody else is drunk out of their minds every Thursday, Friday, Saturday night,” said Dean, who also discussed the issue in the Faculty Executive Council meeting on Oct. 20

.

He said that some of the consequences — such as driving while under the influence — are matters of life or death.

“There is also no doubt whatsoever that binge drinking has been associated with sexual assault problems that have been documented in many places,” he said.

Crisp said this is an issue of safety and student success.

“Binge drinking accounts for many of the problems that students face in their drive toward graduation,” he said in an email.

Crisp and a group of vice chancellors for student affairs have drawn up a preliminary report on the issue of binge drinking in response to a Campus Safety Initiative commissioned by the UNC system.

“While the report was comprehensive and dealt with many issues involving safety, it is clear that substance abuse is a major underlying factor to most of it,” he said.

Crisp also worked to examine the effect of alcohol abuse on the University and the town of Chapel Hill. He said the group made recommendations in three areas: University, Downtown and neighborhoods/community.

Dean said he is working closely with Crisp as well as three other deans: Karen Gil, Bill Roper, and Barbara Rimer.

“All of these people have some professional expertise and have faculty who have expertise in this topic,” he said. “Our next step is to get a group of people together from across campus to think about how we can address binge drinking.”

English professor and faculty adviser for Students for Sensible Drug Policy at UNC, Marc Cohen, said the organization is in favor of any program that educates students and helps them make informed decisions.

He said he was pleased Dean and Crisp were concerned with the issue.

“Our organization cares desperately both about drug policy and the effects of drugs, and when someone in a leadership position takes a stand on that issue, we feel great about it,” he said.

“It is especially exciting when a leader is interested in educating and helping people when they’re young and have not yet established patterns that might last their entire life.”

university@dailytarheel.com