Staff EDITORIAL: Thanks for listening

When the Class of 2007 descends upon campus a month from now, its members will not have to endure one of the most dreaded events of the orientation process: So You Wanna Get Buzzed, an hour-long presentation on the ins and outs of alcohol and drug use. The session has been eliminated in favor of the use of a new online education program, AlcoholEdu, which was developed by graduate Brandon Busteed, Trinity '99, a former Young Trustee.

Incoming freshmen: You should be thanking your lucky stars, not to mention the upperclassmen whose complaints in years past about the program led Student Affairs administrators to eliminate it.

This is not to say that learning the facts about drinking responsibly and irresponsibly should not be an important part of the first few weeks of a student's college experience. The world of drinking in college is dramatically different than that of high school, and students - those who care to drink and the many who do not - should learn everything they can about the physical effects of Busch Lite, Long Island Iced Teas and everything in between. However, the lecture format and Baldwin Auditorium setting of Buzzed was the wrong method in getting across this important information.

Alcohol.edu, an interactive three-hour program that can be viewed in sections, seems at first a bit dry and possibly too time-consuming. But learning this information from the privacy of one's dorm room computer seems like an appropriate way to learn about drinking. One is much less likely to make jokes with neighbors or get distracted by hot new classmates, and one is much more likely to take the presented material seriously.

Administrators should make the program as mandatory as possible - indeed, one of the fatal flaws of its predecessor is that freshmen quickly learn that "mandatory" is a loose term during orientation. Further, although some studies show that incoming students are too inundated with information early in their college careers, freshmen should take the program before they get too engrossed in the alcohol culture, definitely within the first week of school.

The online program will be supplemented by more alcohol-centered skits in The Real Deal, another orientation session that uses upper-class students to act out short "real life" scenes about such issues as hooking up and eating disorders. While this move is welcomed, perhaps an additional venue for such frank discussion may be during resident advisors' first hall meetings of the year. Along with the requisite talk about the alcohol policy, RAs should relate to their residents their own experience with drinking responsibily.

Ultimately, the Office of the Dean of Students should be praised for actually listening to students on this issue. It is not the content, but the delivery of alcohol education that sudents have objected to in the past, and it is nice to see the adminstration realize that a program wasn't working and then not be afraid to let it go.