Drinking down

MSU campaign attempts to curb dangerous drinking with informative approach

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They’re everywhere on campus — white cartoon ducks.

The feathered fowl are plastered on everything from posters to T-shirts and are spreading the message of real drinking behavior at MSU; Not everybody’s drinking.

MSU is addressing the issue of high risk and binge drinking by taking a positive approach through its Social Norms campaign, which feature the ducks MSU has grown to love.

Misconceptions

One of the biggest problems MSU has faced is the misconception that the majority of students are drinking more than they actually are, said Dennis Martell, Olin Health Center’s health education services coordinator.

Martell said these misconceptions cause many to become susceptible to high risk and binge drinking.
A version of what now is known as Social Norms was put in place in 1998 to dispel some of the myths and advertise accurate figures of how much alcohol students were consuming and the behavior of students while they drank.

The data, collected through a biannual survey by the National College Health Association and a semesterly survey of MSU students during the past 10 years, has shown a shift in the perception of how much drinking is occurring, said Larry Hembroff, director of the Office for Survey Research.

According to one of the surveys provided by Social Norms in 2007, the average number of drinks consumed by students dropped from 6.24 drinks per party in 2000 to 5.87 drinks per party in 2006.

“By giving correct information about what the norms really are, people’s perceptions have dropped, and they have integrated that information into their thinking,” Hembroff said.

“In the course of that, fewer people are drinking more than they otherwise would want to, so they’re drinking less. So the norm about what they do drink goes down as well.”

With a shift in perspective, there is a correlated shift in behavior, which not only includes less drinking, but also students involved in high-risk behaviors, such as assault while drinking.
From 2000 to 2006, Social Norms recorded an 8.5 percent reduction in self injury, a 34.8 percent reduction in unprotected sex because of alcohol and a 17 percent reduction of fights.

History of Social Norms

A version of the Social Norms campaign started in 1998, after a combination of excessive drinking, rioting and conflict arose on campus, said Charles Atkin, chairman of MSU’s Department of Communication and a health communications expert.

Atkin said the administration began to re-evaluate its approach to combat negative drinking behaviors. The main discussion focused on switching the message from a fear-based message to one with more positive enforcement.

“It was kind of a novel approach to talk about what the positive behaviors are and how widely they were practiced, instead of going around threatening people, which was the old-fashioned approach,” Atkin said.

In 2007, a task force decided to give the campaign a makeover, placing it in the hands of advertising students for their senior project.

One of the creators of the project, 2007 alumna Laura Dennison, said she and seven others dreamed up the popular ducks gracing campus with the Social Norms message.

She said the group wanted to move away from the traditional logo of Sparty and the signature Spartan ‘S.’ The group used the ducks found near Wells Hall as inspiration and chose a simple color scheme with the white duck.

Zoology junior Cristian Chagas and human biology junior Jesse Geurin said they see the duck posters across campus. They attended a Duck Days event Wednesday on the lawn between Olin Health Center and Berkey Hall, where students and faculty could stop by and pick up free duck shirts and learn about the Social Norms campaign.

“I think sometimes we think that everyone is drinking, when really the majority of people are in the middle,” Chagas said.

The Duck Days event drew more than 700 people, Martell said. Last year, the event had 300 attendees.

“They know it’s a brand. They like it, they know it. They can identify it, and the ducks aren’t saying anything bad; they’re telling the truth,” Martell said.

National and state trends

In a recent article in the Chronicle of Higher Education, Brandon Busteed, founder and chief executive of Outside the Classroom, a company that deals with campus drinking problems, found national trends have begun to show a reduction in high-risk drinking behaviors.

Busteed said colleges across the country have begun to do more to curtail dangerous drinking patterns.
He said it is a combination of visible leadership, communication between the administration and students, and shift in the idea of the purpose of college that has changed the attitudes of college students nationwide.

For colleges to successfully start alcohol risk reduction programs, Busteed said there needs to be a combination of students and policy, along with more education about alcohol for college students.

“It can’t be just a one-sided policy situation where it’s decided by the administration and given to the students,” Busteed said.

Schools such as the University of Michigan have started alcohol risk reduction programs as well and have seen declines in negative drinking behaviors and high-risk drinking on campus.

U-M Alcohol Policy and Community Initiatives Program administrator Mary Jo Desprez said U-M takes a comprehensive look at combating high-risk drinking, including education, surveying and alcohol-free activities sponsored by the university.

Central Michigan University has yet to institute a proactive method to fight high-risk drinking but has begun instituting educational measures in residence halls and through online programs, Central Michigan assistant director in Resident Life Michelle Veith said.

For now, MSU hopes to continue educating students about the truths of drinking behavior and are considering expanding the social norms campaign to drug use and sexual health.

“Once you reframe things, it changes peoples minds about the culture,” Martell said.

“It changes the perception of the university.”

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