Alcohol: many freshmen want it and will do whatever it takes to drink as much as they can once they get ahold of it. This situation often times leads to negative consequences for these students as they adjust to life away from home.
At Cal Poly, as with many other universities, underage drinking is common, but there are students committed to educating the campus about alcohol and its consequences. Smart Students, Smart Choices is a senior project campaign class that started five years ago with the goal of increasing alcohol awareness for on-campus freshmen.
“The purpose of the class is always the same, which is to promote smart decisions and good choices about drinking on campus. What’s changed is what it’s been called or what the theme is,” said Brian Tietje, associate dean of undergraduate programs in the Orfalea College of Business and the group’s faculty advisor.
Though the title for the project is Smart Students, Smart Choices, this year the theme is Define Yourself, chosen by the students who think it has a more thoughtful impact on campus than past themes such as the recent Under Four campaign. Under Four featured posters and advertisements of students who looked like they drank too much alcohol and found themselves in less-than-flattering situations.
“We’re really trying to move towards a more serious tone,” business senior Chris King said. “Last year’s campaign had good intentions, but a lot of people took their own spin on it. We didn’t want to have that.”
The group was formed after winter quarter registration last fall. Each of the 20 students in the senior project class was sent out to perform their own research on drinking and how it affects college students.
“At the end of fall quarter, I gave the students an individual assignment which was basically to do some primary and secondary research in order to learn more about the social problem of excessive drinking, to learn what other campuses have already tried to do and to learn about the data that’s out there and research that’s been done on excessive drinking on campus,” Tietje said.
This is Tietje’s first year advising the campaign and he has taken a self-proclaimed “hands-off role” in the process. Thus far, his role has been to assign the students to conduct research in order to provide a solid basis for their chosen theme. He said that this research was especially important because senior students do not always fully understand what life is like as a freshman.
“I challenged them to do some research to get inside the heads of their target market, in this case on-campus freshmen,” he said. “Seniors have kind of lost sight on what the lives of freshmen are like, especially because the lives of freshmen now are a little different than when they were freshmen.”
The initial marketing efforts of the campaign can be seen all over campus, from their thumb-printed posters to a life-sized silhouetted person located just inside the doors of Campus Market. Each marketing effort leads the viewer to their Web site, www.cpdefineyourself.com, where there are links to six different videos that tell personal stories about the effects of alcohol.
“The thumb print is our logo and it’s about defining yourself outside of alcohol. Anyone can drink, so it’s kind of like a challenge to students to figure out what they are all about,” King explained.
One of the first major events that group members have been planning is what they tentatively call “A night off drinking.” They are trying to work with local businesses and the greek system in order to promote having a good time without the aid of alcohol. Ideally, businesses would agree to offer alternatives to alcohol and the entire greek community would agree to one night without drinking.
The group is also planning is to sponsor a dunk-tank during a UU Hour where students would be able to dunk university police officers who have volunteered to participate. Each event will aim to engage students in activities that do not involve alcohol and yet are entertaining at the same time.
“Our campaign isn’t about stopping the consumption of alcohol at Cal Poly,” King said. “It’s college, we realize that people are going to drink. It really ties into the Smart Students, Smart Choices where if you’re going to drink, do it responsibly. That’s all we want people to do.”