With the first of two mandatory International Programs (IP) orientations taking place this Saturday, directors and faculty are scrambling to prepare students in the 2012–2013 academic year programs for the alcohol-culture shock many will experience. Alcohol abuse is a prime issue that program directors agree can be averted with onset guidance.
Alcohol Awareness Week ends this Friday, and in case prospective students going abroad overlooked it, they’ll be briefed on the subject soon enough.
Plans for the orientation are still in its finishing stages, and Jeff Hamilton, director of IP admissions and student affairs, said they’ve revamped the orientation from previous years. The goal is to get students to drink responsibly, but the definitive approach to this has yet to be decided, Hamilton said.
“We are aware that alcohol is part of the culture and the students will be exposed to it,” Hamilton said. “Our hope is that they are exposed to it through how the culture intended it to be used. But that goes the same with experiencing the food or the art or the landscape; we want them to take it in context.”
Sophomore Meredith Nelson returned to campus this January following a semester in Heidelberg and feels indifferent to the shift in alcohol policy and culture. She said that because alcohol had become the norm, she and her classmates did not have any issues with it.
Of course, there were the few who took advantage of the opportunity to say hello and good-bye to unchecked drinking. But since her homecoming, Nelson hasn’t touched alcohol nor feels the need to.
“The first week some students feel outside of a cage, therefore they abuse,” Director of the Buenos Aires (BA) program Dr. Rafael De Sanzo wrote in an email. “After living with local families and experiencing the social drinking habit from local students … they learn how to enjoy alcohol within their journey.”
De Sanzo wrote that the BA program is a completely different experience from that of Pepperdine, and the students there, being adults, have much more freedom.
Dr. Carolyn Vos Strache, program director of the London program, relies on alcohol awareness training for incoming students rather than planning for the punishment of alcohol offenders. Their program, “Mind the Limit,” which encourages students to drink responsibly, was recently presented to the American Association of Study Abroad Programs Association. Faculty and RAs, who have been known to go to pubs and clubs with students, encourage students to limit drinks to a healthy amount per night.
“Our alcohol abuse numbers in London are below the 10 percent — which would be four per semester for violations,” Vos Strache wrote. “We usually have 1 to 2 per semester. Thus far in 2012, we have had zero. We think the training is having an effect on developing effective decision making regarding alcohol consumption.”
Both the London and Buenos Aires directors agree the programs do not oppose drinking, just drunks.
New research from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) shows that the 18 to 24-year-old age bracket boasts the most binge drinkers. Regular binges and their intensity — averaging 9.3 drinks — were highest in young adults. The CDC notes most people who binge drink are not alcohol dependent, but what happens when the age group is put into an academic setting, in a foreign country?
A 2010 University of Washington study published in the “Psychology of Addictive Behaviors” found that U.S. college students more than double their alcohol consumption while studying abroad. The study suggests studying abroad can present a high-risk situation involving drinking.
It’s undecided whether the study is reflective of IP. The average drinking habits went from having four drinks a week to eight. Those in the study under 21 increased their drinking by almost 170 percent. Most students in IP are under 21.
“This is one of the things I feel especially bad about, and if those studies hold true, then Europeans may be getting the sense that young Americans can’t hold their liquor or they don’t know their limits,” said Dr. Paul Contino, a 2008 summer and inbound Florence faculty member. “Europeans don’t drink to excess. They drink because it’s part of the social fabric of having a meal together and enjoying company.”
Contino told the story of Saint Augustine of Hippo’s mother Saint Monica who quit drinking altogether once she started liking the taste of it too much. He also related to the Italian phrase “bella forma,” or good form, to explain how Europeans generally conduct themselves.
The freedom found within the international programs is a stark contrast to the dry campus rules of Malibu and may surprise freshmen preparing to go abroad, an issue that comes up in the IP interview. Some students said they were taken aback by the exhaustive focus on drinking during the tense interview — a ritual that includes dressing formally and preparing heavily.
“It was half the interview where he talked about alcohol and drugs and basically asked if we had ever tried alcohol and drugs,” freshman Kaelyn Lark, admitted to the London program’s spring semester, recalled of her interview. “We all obviously said, ‘No,’ and then he asked if it was because of the Christian mission here. He then explained the reasoning behind his questions: a lot of students have experienced [alcohol abuse] in the past when of they come back. That’s why they take it so seriously,”
The average legal drinking age at the IP countries is 18 or older. Most Pepperdine students enroll in IP as sophomores. According to Frommer’s Travel Guides, the countries that IP inhabit have “no liquor laws worth worrying about.”
One in four full-time college students in that year faced alcohol abuse or dependence, according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.
