Last week, a group of students enrolled in the Peer Health Advocacy class organized National Collegiate Alcohol Awareness Week at UR. Taught by Nancy Reynolds, the class is an elective in the Health & Society curriculum.
According to Reynolds, the NCAAW project supplemented UHS efforts to educate students on the dangers of alcohol.
“It’s not in any way an anti-alcohol program,” Reynolds said. “The idea was to promote alcohol-free socializing, to help students make self choices and to avoid high-risk drinking.”
Junior Tahleah Mustaca, who worked on the project, agrees with Reynolds. “The biggest thing for me is not that people don’t drink but that when they’re drinking they stay safe and don’t go over their limit,” Mustaca said.
Freshman Shannon Davids, who headed the NCAAW group, noted that her priority for the project was to explain UR’s alcohol policy to freshmen. She and Mustaca, along with sophomores Jack Greco, Pat McIntyre, and Bryan Solomon, set up tables in Wilson Commons Friday to distribute tabletops and emergency cards.
The emergency cards have the phone numbers of local cab companies, a link to the UR bus schedule Web site and a guide to limiting your alcohol consumption.
In addition, local businesses like the Distillery and Pellegrino’s donated coupons for the group to distribute to students throughout the week. Project Purpose, a group of students who have already taken the Peer Health Advocacy course and are now working on health promotion at the university, prepared a supplemental program to NCAAW.
“People seemed to be receptive and willing to take the info and look at it,” Mustaca concluded of NCAAW at UR.
“I think it’s beneficial to students and would be a good thing for the school to promote.”
Chepovetsky can be reached at mchepovetsky@campustimes.org.
