No student wants to spend additional hours in a lecture, even if the subject matter is alcohol and drinking. But if you go before the Student Judicial Board (SJB) for a drinking violation, you could find yourself receiving homework assignments in a classroom in the Davidson Health Center.

Choices is an educational program designed to teach students who have received drinking violations for alcohol and unsafe drinking. Lisa Currie, director of health education at the University and one of the primary directors for Choices, said this will be the second full academic year that Choices has been used as an SJB sanction.  

“We thought the SJB could turn towards Choices as a nice alternative, educational sanction for students,” Currie said. “In the first year, the board did not refer many students, so there were very few participants.”

The program has expanded this year and is now used as the primary sanction for first-time drinking violators.

The Choices program consists of two 90-minute classes. The first class covers the material included in a safe drinking workbook.

“Journaling activities in the workbook encourage students to reflect on their own behavior, and it gives them something to talk about,” Currie said.

Students may not be as focused as their coordinator perceives them to be, however. One freshman who participated in the course said that his journal was filled with drawings and doodles unrelated to the class content.

While there is a Choices curriculum, Currie explains that they also try to promote discussion in the classroom.

“Sometimes there is some real hesitation to speak frankly,” Currie said. “We don’t require anyone to share any details, but people are free to ask questions and share as much or as little as they wish. We try to create a comfortable setting.”

Students admit that many are reluctant to speak up.

“[Currie] wanted people to participate and no one would,” said Anonymous ’12.  “It ended up just being a lecture for 90 minutes. The material that we covered wasn’t anything that we didn’t know. It seems like routine business to have anyone who gets an alcohol violation to go to the meetings and have them sit there for 90 minutes.”

Currie, however, believes that students’ lack of involvement in the classroom doesn’t necessarily mean that they aren’t learning.

“They don’t have to talk to take something away from it,” Currie said. “They can form ideas in their own head, and I don’t have to hear that out loud. Changing behavior is not instantaneous. Health behavior change takes time. This is one of those things that just layers in.”

Currie believes that the program provides the necessary tools to improve drinking habits and promote safe drinking. It is up to the students to use the tools in a productive manner.
“We frame it in a way so that students can use this knowledge an come out on the low risk end,” Currie said. “I can’t control if people are taking it and saying, ‘now I can drink better.’ Some people may take the course in defiance and say ‘now I know how to get drunker faster,’ but we really just hope that students can avoid consequences like the ones they have experienced so far.”

To reinforce what they have learned, homework is given after the first class. Students are asked to fill out a chart outlining when they drink, where they drink, with whom they drink, what mood they are in when they drink, what they drink, and how much drink.

“We try to find a discernible pattern in students’ drinking pattern, so they can find out what their risky drinking circumstances are,” Currie said. “I’m not telling the students not to drink for the next two weeks and tell us how it was. We don’t take on a prohibitionist attitude.”

Currie emphasized that the goal of the program is not to judge students for drinking.

 “We’re not there to preach—we’re there to give information so that student can make their own choices,” she said. “We want to help students to gain more objective information about alcohol and drinking patterns. This forces you to think about your patterns, instead of saying ‘Oh, I’m fine.’”

Currie believes that as the program continues over the years, it will only improve, as the instructors realize what works with students and what doesn’t.

“We haven’t completed a full evaluation on the class yet, but every participant does complete and pre and post-test and evaluation,” she said. “We won’t know until we are done compiling all of the responses in May, but glancing at the data has given us a sense that students are finding the program beneficial.”

Some students agree that this educational program is a preferred alternative SJB sanction over alternatives.

“I understand that the school has to do something, so the program is way better than having something on your record,” Anonymous ’12 said.