Drinking, Collegiate Life, and
Attrition: Is There a Connection?
This article is interesting
(see the discussion section if not interested in the technical information on research
methodology) in that for the first time, to my knowledge, a link between heavy
drinking and attrition is documented statistically. This is of
significance as it is something to which those concerned about high-risk and
dangerous collegiate drinking can refer when arguing our point about increased
administrative and financial support for prevention. More to the point,
with senior administrators frequently driven by fiscal “bottom lines” and
boards of trustees more concerned with business models than academic missions,
linking “high-risk and dangerous drinking” to “attrition,” that is “income,”
can be an important step forward for our field.
Related to this, we
know that using Prochaska’s Transtheoretical Model of Counseling (see http://www.uri.edu/research/cprc/TTM/StagesOfChange.htm)—with
its value rooted in recognizing the significance of approaching individuals in
their existing stage of readiness to change and then mounting motivational
interventions designed to enhance movement towards change based on that
awareness—is effective clinically. When this model is used to approach
institutional change, the principles remain the same…change results as decision
makers are guided through their successive stages of readiness to make such
changes based upon effective interventions. For those administrators at the earlier stages of readiness to change, "consciousness raising" and "awareness" oriented interventions are most effective in motivating movement to the preparation and action stages of readiness to change; Martines, Sher, and Wood's article permits this be done.
In the case of
senior administrators, boards of trustees, many faculty, and various other
parties with vested interests in how higher education is managed, although they
are aware that “collegiate drinking is an issue,” they tend to see it as more
the results of student developmental issues and/or “the rites of passage” that
“have always been and will always be.” Consequently, the fact that
high-risk and dangerous drinking is among the top public health issues
affecting contemporary collegians is lost on the very individuals who are the
most influential in making the campus policy and fiscal decisions that
ultimately determine higher education’s ability to address this issue.
To definitively link
heavy drinking to attrition presents an opportunity to both argue the importance
of moving collegiate drinking in general and high-risk and dangerous collegiate
drinking specifically to a position of greater significance and appropriateness
for funding. In short, if a registered student represent 10s of thousands
of dollars annually in an institution’s fiscal bottom line, then demonstrating
the role of heavy drinking, in concert with the events that students attend,
plays in reducing that revenue is likely to garner greater interest when we
make our pitch for prevention and intervention.
In conclusion,
irrespective of the changes that senior administrators do or do not make
regarding this subject, the findings reported in the research cited above also
provide valuable insight for us as prevention specialists to better target our
efforts and increase the effectiveness of the evidence-based best practices we
are currently employing as we address heavy collegiate drinking. In short, it is not just “heavy drinkers”
that we need to target with our prevention efforts, but heavy drinkers who attend specific types of collegiate
events.
It will be
interesting to see if Martinez, Sher, and Wood’s findings are replicated and if
their recommendations for additional research are heeded, but irrespective of
the future, there is interesting “food for thought” in this provocative
article.
What do you think?
Dr. Robert
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