University attempts to curb alcohol consumption
This story is Part 2 of a three-day series on USC's drinking culture. This story addresses administration's plans to reduce alcohol use. Wednesday's story discussed current alcohol-related problems. Friday's story will look at how USC's policies compare to other schools.
As USC wrangles with issues in its culture of alcohol use administrators describe as systemic and environmental, it appears the university faces a dilemma.
Its alcohol educational efforts, from the AlcoholEdu course new students are required to take to the programs assigned as sanctions, advocate for responsibility with drinking, not outright abstinence, said Alisa Cooney, the director of student conduct, and Maggie Leitch, the coordinator of Substance Abuse Prevention and Education.
But as USC reconsiders how it deals with its students' drinking, the prevailing sentiment appears to be moving toward making punishments stricter and increasing enforcement.
"You know what the No. 1 thing that makes a difference in alcohol behavioral change is, across the country? Enforcement," Cooney said. "Then we look like ogres, but the No. 1 thing is to deter."
The university is currently reviewing its code of conduct — and its sanctions — and Cooney said she expects them to grow harsher.
"Some people would argue that if you made the first offense exceptionally painful, you wouldn't have those second ones," she said, adding later: "I believe that ... based on what university community members are calling for — even students who are on the committee — that alcohol sanctions will be increased for the first offense."
Cooney hopes the review, the first in a decade, will be completed by May, so the new rules can pass through a chain of administrators and be implemented for next year's freshman class.
The rate of repeat offenses on campus, however, appears to be dropping already.
The Office of Student Conduct has seen 10.3 percent of students with violations this year return for another, according to Augusta Schneider, its business office manager. That's a decrease from last year, when the rate stood at 12.8 percent, and from five years ago, when it was 18.2 percent.
Students, including first-year nursing student Eric Mercado, said they were skeptical of how effective those changes would be.
"It's all about college culture, and students will hate — and be more afraid of — cops," Mercado said. "They already come down on us hard enough. There needs to be more of an education of alcohol, because controlled drinking is no big deal."
USC President Harris Pastides said he would support increasing such educational programs and help them receive funding if university officials saw a need for them.
"I know we spend a lot of money on it," Pastides said. "But this year, if (Director of Student Services) Anna Edwards, (Associate Vice President for Student Affairs) Jerry Brewer and (Vice President for Student Affairs) Dennis Pruitt came to me and said, 'We've got to allocate more funding to more programs,' they would get the money ... It's not a carte blanche, but I would be interested."
Leitch said she and other administrators had discussed other options as well, especially as they work to curb drinking on Tuesday and Thursday nights.
USC students drink more on Tuesdays and Thursdays than the rest of the country, surveys of new students who took the AlcoholEdu course showed.
Among the options the administration has considered, Leitch said, were having more classes on Wednesday and Friday mornings and trying to limit the number of midweek specials at bars.
"Maybe we need to not go by what students are wanting but by what they need," Leitch said of the course scheduling. "That's a little bit of how the perception is — that I can plan my whole schedule around what nights I'm going to go to Five Points."
Officials have also discussed how to reduce alcohol use at football games next fall, Leitch said. Fifteen percent of those students who took AlcoholEdu last year said they drank most often at athletic events, five times above the national average.
Though details of those efforts are largely undecided, they focus mainly on bringing more arms of the university, including the offices of Student Conduct and Student Ticketing, into gameday enforcement and promoting a "responsible fan behavior" campaign.
"I think it's just a matter of getting the right people communicating ... What are the consequences for getting ejected from a football game? What does that need to look like?" Leitch said. "(Right now) it's like, 'Oh, we'll let law enforcement handle that' ... Honestly, law enforcement is so preoccupied with other things: crowd control, traffic control and so many other things."
But how effective those efforts will be remains a question, especially, as third-year environmental science student Josh Cain said, students continue drinking in the face of stricter policies.
"Students are going to do what they're going to do," Cain said.
Editor's note: Colin Campbell and Caroline Baity contributed reporting.