What is it?
This practice is one aspect of culture cultivation, which is comprised of diverse initiatives to foster a campus community of connectedness and caring, and encourages social responsibility in regard to alcohol. A common thrust in culture cultivation, whether implicit or explicit in an initiative, will be to counter the notion that alcohol use is normative or even necessary for an enjoyable experience in an undergraduate educational setting. Providing a variety of attractive opportunities for alcohol-free socialization and recreation is a more indirect and background form of establishing a climate conducive to constructive attitudes and habits around alcohol use. It seeks to help students not only form positive social networks but also realize that fun, social skills and assurance of belonging need not at all ride on participation in drinking. (Even leisure events where consumption might be permitted can also be managed in such a way as to relativize the role of alcohol as a contributor to a pleasurable time.)
Level of research support: Some evidence of effectiveness
Why do it?
Strong initiatives of this sort work against common facilitators of problematic drinking among students, especially those in first-year. These facilitators include excessive free time, boredom and other situations where there may be a reliance on alcohol to liven things up or facilitate conversation and conviviality.
Alternative opportunities can also prevent new students from developing detachment, loneliness and anxiety related to a sense of not being part of a circle of friends.
Beyond strengthening a personal protective factor for individual students through participation in emotionally satisfying interaction with others, efforts of this sort serve to build greater collective cohesion and resilience, fostering better communication and raising behavioural expectations.
Such initiatives are typically part of a postsecondary school’s program to some degree, and the cost of enhancing them is not a huge expense. They align with an onus to support well-rounded personal adjustment and prepare individuals for future active involvement in encouraging healthy recreational patterns among fellow citizens.
Who is it for?
Who can facilitate it?
How can we implement it?
Promote student social, recreational and leisure clubs (including religious clubs)
One means of providing attractive alternatives is through the traditional promotion of student clubs that form around specific interests (e.g., hobbies, religious/spiritual pursuits, cultural identifications). These can supply alternative networks of socialization where students find they can happily belong without using alcohol. Such involvements may prove especially helpful for integration of first-year students.
The biggest challenge in maximizing this conventional practice is how best to encourage or enforce alcohol-free gatherings (or at least alcohol-regulated get-togethers which relegate drinking to a peripheral place). Consensus of student affairs personnel and student leaders on guidelines for functioning of approved clubs will facilitate favourable environments.
Provide locations and occasions that meet strong social need
Another way of supplying appealing alternatives is to provide and publicize alcohol-free contexts (standing and occasional). Such could encompass a range of social places (e.g., residence options, coffeehouses, student centres) and a variety of activities and events (e.g., intramural sports, extended hours for gym, pool and fitness facilities; outdoor adventure excursions; parties, dances, concerts, movies, with the theatre supplying non-alcoholic beverages and food).
Athletics staff can build team identity and spirit (as well as implicitly reinforce team mission and goals) by thoughtfully organizing social situations that are highly entertaining without including consumption as an integral part of festivities.
Institutions have often had programs and arrangements aimed at giving students another option to activities and events revolving around alcohol. The challenge is to devote enough capacity and resources to make the alternatives of such quality that they elicit avid student participation (rather than being poor enough by comparison as to unintentionally reinforce a stereotype of alcohol as integral to fun times).
Article: Behavioural Economic Approaches
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