Beginning this fall, UNA will provide online self-assessments to incoming freshmen to help the university better educate students about the effects of drinking alcohol.

The university recently purchased AlcoholEdu, an online alcohol prevention program designed specifically for college students by Outside the Classroom, a national organization that has reached more than 2 million young people.

UNA will administer the assessments to each incoming freshmen class via UNA Portal over a four-year span to learn more about attitudes and behaviors toward alcohol consumption in students.

Freshmen students and their parents will initially receive a letter from UNA President Dr. William Cale about the new self-assessments and the university’s efforts to educate students about alcohol.

Students will take the first part of the comprehensive self-assessments before they begin their first semester.

After 3-5 weeks, they will take a second follow-up assessment reflecting on their experiences with alcohol since coming to campus.

Dr. Kim Greenway, director of Student Conduct, Planning and Assessment, expects the educational efforts based on the data from the self-assessments will benefit UNA students and may cut down on alcohol-related arrests, misconduct, poor academic performance and more.

“It will give us a true picture of alcohol use on campus and the perceptions that are out there,” she said. “We will be able to use that data as an educational tool to know how to better reach our students.”

Forty-six percent of college students believe drinking alcohol is a major part of the social lives of other college students and that more than 50 percent of students think the social atmosphere on their college campuses promote alcohol use, according to 2005 data from the CORE Institute Regional Profiles of College Student Alcohol and Other Drug (AOD) Use in Colleges in the Southeast Region.

UNA Counseling Services currently offers two self-assessments on its website, including e-CHUG, focused on alcohol, and e-TOKE, focused on marijuana. Each of these assessments are taken anonymously and offer personalized feedback.

“A lot of incoming freshmen believe it’s a right of passage for college students to use alcohol,” said Lynne Martin, associate director of UNA Counseling and Disability Services.

“To prevent alcohol use in college students is an unrealistic goal. We already have a variety of educational efforts with them. We want everyone to have the information they need to better equip themselves in their decisions related to alcohol use. General data continues to tell us that alcohol use remains the number one impediment to academic performance among college students,” she added.

UNA police Chief Bob Pastula believes the assessments will be effective in reaching students earlier in their college careers by teaching them the hazards of drinking alcohol and how it can affect their lives and academic pursuits.

Freshmen will not have to pay for or receive college credit by taking the self-assessments.

For more information about the assessments, contact Greenway at 256-765-5012 or e-mail [email protected].