Does UM have a drinking problem?
Many students come to campus already having experimented with alcohol. One of the strongest predictors of alcohol use in college is the student’s social life in high school (Bucholz, 1990; Jacob and Leonard, 1994). The latest national statistics (Wechsler, 2001) indicate that overall 44% of undergraduate college students have had a binge in the past two weeks (binge drinking defined as 4 or more drinks for women and 5 or more for men in the course of one episode). On the UM campus, these rates are higher with 52% of undergraduate students having engaged in binge drinking at least once in the past two weeks (Student Life Survey, Boyd and McCabe, 2007). Consistent with national research, students report primary and secondary consequences associated with alcohol use. For instance, 20.5% of undergraduate students who consumed alcohol in year prior to the survey reported driving a car under the influence, and twenty-nine percent experienced a blackout. Additionally, 69% of all undergraduate
