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Dorms use new alcohol education techniques

Sarah Mayher

With the safe use of alcohol long an issue of contention on Miami University's campus, the university is stepping up its measures this year in hopes of preventing on-campus students from falling victim to the dangers of alcohol.

In addition to increasing the costs for alcohol-related violations to the Student Code of Conduct, one new education option has come about from Miami's journalism program.

During the 2006 fall semester, the COM/JRN 314: Advanced Television Reporting class, instructed by Joe Sampson, produced a DVD titled "Restoring Honor: A Campus and Community Response."

The film addresses and questions the magnitude of Miami's drinking problem as well as the consequences that impact both the school's students and members of the Oxford community.

Accompanying the video is a discussion guide-the result of collaboration between Sampson, Rob Abowitz, associate director of residence life, and Leslie Haxby McNeill, assistant director and prevention coordinator at the Office of Health Education.

According to Abowitz, each residence hall is responsible for taking part in an "alcohol awareness" activity within the first five weeks of the school year, and now residence assistants (RAs) and Peer Hawks (students involved with health education at Miami) have the option to show "Restoring Honor" to fulfill this requirement.

Sampson and Richard Campbell, director of Miami's journalism program, have also offered to be discussion leaders for the project.

Haxby hopes that the video will promote discussion and help students protect themselves from the potential negative effects of alcohol.

"We have no real expected outcomes for the project," Sampson said. "We only feel that students are not as involved as they should be."

McNeill believes that since the "Restoring Honor" film is a "student-driven" project, it is not judgmental and will allow students to talk freely about alcohol with their RAs.

"Students should realize that we are not just a campus," McNeill said. "We are a community."

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So far, only Wilson Hall will be viewing the "Restoring Honor" DVD as part of their alcohol awareness program. Wilson Hall members will view the video Sept. 12, with a discussion following the video.

"('Restoring Honor' is just) one of the many things done on our campus to solve the problem of alcohol," Abowitz said.

Other residence halls are also attempting to educate students to the potential dangers of alcohol in creative ways. Emerson Hall, a first-year residence hall, plans to hold a Mocktail Pub Crawl Sept. 5, during which students will receive mock cocktails as well as information about alcohol.

In the past, halls have also held dance parties where skittles were put in drinks to represent Rohypnol and other "date rape" drugs.

In addition to the activities put on by the residence halls, all first-year students are required to complete AlcoholEDU-an online educational program-before coming to campus. 

According to McNeill, these measures are important for all Miami students and not just first-years.

"It is not on their radar that these are potentially lethal choices they are making," McNeill said, in reference to most students and their decisions concerning alcohol.