Michael D. Shonrock, PhD
Senior VP of Enrollment Management and Student Affairs, Texas Tech University
Read Michael's biography>
Recently, I read an article in the opinions section of our community newspaper titled “Global Warming: Like Religion, True Believers Accept on Faith” by Professor Walter E. Williams at George Mason University. Not often do I take a moment to pause for reflection...
...something we don't do enough in our profession - but I began asking myself the question, “What if we were able to successfully frame our discussion regarding high-risk drinking on college and university campuses similar to the discussions surrounding global warming?” After 30 years of experience in higher education, without a doubt, the impact of global drinking has consumed (no pun intended) our colleagues engaged in alcohol education, intervention, and prevention.
Clearly, there are at least two camps regarding global warming dialogue – one camp that suggests carbon emissions have a significant impact on our planet causing global warming and another camp that disputes the impact of carbon emissions. Regardless of which camp you subscribe, there is no denying that the Earth’s temperature is changing. Further, both camps would probably find agreement that green initiatives (sustainability efforts) positively contribute to our environment.
About the same time I read this opinion piece, we were fortunate enough to have Cindy Berg, Vice President from Outside the Classroom, present a most intriguing presentation linking alcohol prevention to mission critical priorities. Again, another opportunity for reflection. And my question to fellow colleagues at public and private colleges and universities is,“How do we create greater awareness and, more importantly, attention to high-risk drinking with the same interest related to sustainability efforts?”
Data. We are constantly reminded in higher education of the importance of decisions being data-driven or data-informed – without a doubt we are data rich and information poor even as it relates to high-risk drinking. Clearly, dialogue regarding global warming is fueled by data that, in turn, impacts how limited resources are allocated – with the best return on investment. The recent data gathered by Outside the Classroom notes an observation that was interesting to discuss in the past but now provides information critical to colleges and universities in the future – student retention. Our university is now spending time gathering data from AlcoholEdu, Student Judicial Programs, Registrar, Student Retention, and other departments on how high-risk drinking impacts student retention and how, ultimately, that impacts the financial well-being of our university especially in these times of financial uncertainty.
As I regularly remind new professionals and particularly graduate students, you need to learn how to ask good questions. Now, during a time of reflection, I’m reminded of my own recommendation of asking better questions about not only what we know and don’t know but what we are not asking regarding high-risk drinking on our campus. What data is available and how do we collaborate among our various departments to compare the data and ask questions about how efficient and effective we are with education and prevention strategies that ultimately impact student retention. My sense is that the data and information gathered would be of great interest to legislators, board members, cabinet members, and as importantly, parents – not to forget the media.
A special note of thanks goes to Professor Walter Williams and Cindy Berg for an opportunity to reflect and reframe some of my thinking regarding high-risk drinking and creating a potential new paradigm on the value of education and prevention toward student retention. I’m an incurable optimist and recognize that someday many of today’s college students will have students of their own and I always hope that we can provide them better data and better information to make better choices.
The heightened focus on retention in higher education today suggests that administrators should be paying even more attention to already present concerns about alcohol misuse among college students, as heavy or high risk drinking is likely to be a prominent factor contributing to student attrition.
Research indicates there are several ways in which problem drinking can contribute to the loss of students before graduation. First, and most tragically, heavy drinking is often associated with suicides, accidental injury and death of inebriated students, and injuries and deaths in fighting, hazing, and car crash incidents (Perkins, 2002). Simply being arrested for driving while alcohol impaired, and thus potentially incurring thousands of dollars in legal fees and incarceration, has been shown to be associated with doubling the chance of dropping out of school (Thompson & Richardson, 2008). Second, depression is often identified as a factor leading students to drop out of school, and heavy alcohol use can help produce or exacerbate a student’s depression. Third, a school may have to require a student to leave for a year or permanently, due to the commission of multiple social infractions or poor academic performance, both of which are highly linked to frequent heavy drinking (Perkins, 2002; Porter and Pryor 2007). Fourth, a student may lose motivation and choose to drop out of school due to low academic engagement even if he or she is able to maintain passing grades, and here again, alcohol consumption may play a role. Research has shown heavy drinking to be associated with a student’s low engagement with faculty, for example (Porter & Pryor, 2007). Finally, heavy drinking among students in one’s immediate living environment, or simply the perception of heavy drinking as the student norm (even though research shows such a perception is actually a misperception of the overall student norm), can alienate light drinkers and abstainers (Perkins, 2007). These light drinkers and abstainers then do not feel they are a part of the student body and begin to withdraw emotionally as well as socially and may consider transferring elsewhere.
Student personnel professionals intending to conduct research on the association between student drinking and attrition can draw upon several strategies to examine the potential relationship in their local setting, though adequate methodologies can become complex. One approach might be to cull through institutional records of students who have left school prior to graduation to see if there is evidence of more frequent alcohol violations in comparison with other students in their cohort. One study has looked at publically available police arrest records in the local area and compared the names with school directory listings in the current and subsequent years to see if arrested students persist in school and at what rate (Thompson & Richardson, 2008). It is possible to use survey data collected on incoming students to profile their drinking practices upon arrival and compare the subsequent attrition rates of the initially heavy and lighter drinkers. Surveys of college students can also assess the degree of student engagement as broken down by personal drinking practices and perceptions of peers.
One final caveat should be noted about researching student drinking and retention, however. A simple comparison of heavy and light drinkers’ retention rates may deceptively not reveal the potentially dramatic effects of problem drinking on attrition. That is because heavier drinking is often associated with greater attendance at college social events and attendance at social events per se (social integration) tends to strengthen retention. Thus, more revealing studies will first separate for analysis those students who more actively attend social events from other students and then examine the retention rates of heavy and light drinkers within each level of student social engagement. Research using this approach has documented a significant negative impact of heavy drinking when the level of social integration is controlled (Martinez, Sher, & Wood, 2008). view references
There are two seemingly divergent, yet key connections between college drinking and attrition. Campuses with a notable drinking culture lose both their brightest, achievement-oriented students as well as the students who fail to perform academically due to their drinking or other drug use.
Similar to the distribution of a classic bell curve, the top 5 percent and the bottom 5 percent of a first-year student cohort are likely to leave due to alcohol and other drug use on their campus.
I refer to the bottom 5 percent in regards to their academic performance, which suffers due to their alcohol or other drug use. These are the students who perform poorly on exams, miss deadlines, miss classes and underperform on assignments because of their alcohol or other drug use. The top 5 percent of the student cohort refers to those students who are achievement-oriented and are put off by what they perceive to be a student body and an environment that is not academically focused. These students are likely to have their living and studying environment disrupted by another students drinking. Many of these students choose to transfer to colleges and universities that they determine to be more academic and achievement-oriented.
In both cases, we see that students do not view their lives in and out of the classroom as two distinctly separate experiences. Their relationship to our institutions is holistic, and not cleaved into a Division of Academic Affairs and a Division of Student Affairs. These literal divisions exist in the organizational charts and institutional operations to the detriment of student retention.
To improve first-year student retention on our campuses we need to understand why students leave, and to take action to rectify the problems we identify. This requires information sharing and a collaborative approach to understanding our students’ experiences in and out of the classroom. One way to achieve this is through the examination of cohorts of students who have recently left. Cross-referencing student ID numbers and sharing aggregate data is one straightforward way to do this within ethical guidelines and federal confidentiality restrictions. The Registrar’s Office has the names and ID numbers of the students who did not return for the spring semester of their first-year or the fall of their sophomore year. This information can be shared with staff in the counseling centers, substance abuse prevention programs, and judicial affairs offices who can then cross-reference student ID numbers to measure the number and percentage of the students they encountered from that cohort.
Understanding how student alcohol use may be negatively impacting retention of top performing students requires a somewhat different approach. Exit interviews or confidential exit surveys (I recommend you survey students and their parents) can provide important information regarding drivers of attrition. Early warning signs include requests for faculty recommendations, requests to send transcripts to other institutions of higher education, and complaints to staff in the residence halls about the environment and other students’ behavior. Academically-focused and achievement-oriented students who do not find the campus to be supportive of their academic focus will leave. Remember—high performing students have options.