The XFL. Pepsi Blue. Communism. Sometimes things that sound great on paper turn out less successful in practice. Enter AlcoholEdu, the infamous alcohol education program and required reading for thousands of incoming freshman every year at universities nationwide. The online course is on unsteady ground at Ohio University as administrators scramble to find $40,000 to support it another year. But we wonder if the university might have more pressing financial concerns to attend to.
It's no secret that the program does little to actually prevent alcohol abuse ' even those in charge admit the program is hardly a deterrent. Instead, they claim the online course was designed simply to give OU information about students' drinking habits. Could've fooled us ' we're not sure what statistical data the university hopes to obtain by spoon-feeding students what we've already learned dozens of times in high school health class. And the program's long-winded case studies are, to put it bluntly, insulting and rife with stock stereotypes. The pretty, anorexic sorority girl? The black athletics recruit? All present and accounted for.
For a university struggling financially on so many fronts, funding would be better spent elsewhere. If the university is worried about providing students with baseline information for their own safety, that goal could certainly be achieved more succinctly. If the university is worried about gathering statistical information about drinking on campus, that could certainly be achieved in a more cost-effective way. There is concern that students would respond less truthfully to a university-run survey than to AlcoholEdu, which is managed by a third party, but everyone should wise up ' students slogging through AlcoholEdu's many banal sessions are far more interested in reaching the end by any means possible than providing an accurate portrayal of their private drinking habits.
Alcohol abuse is a real problem at OU, especially among underclassmen. Educating students about its dangers is a noble goal, but let's not kid ourselves '-
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