These interventions are needed to prepare them for the new situations and opportunities and consequent increased risks that are associated with reaching the legal drinking age. These efforts should complement campus programming efforts to reduce high risk drinking by freshmen and sophomores. Over half of all drinkers engage in heavy episodic drinking, and the majority of these also state that they do not intend to change this high risk behavior. This suggests that greater attention be given to campus programming designed to enhance risk perception and problem recognition among this large group of high risk drinkers. Because of their higher prevalence of risky alcohol use, men who live off campus or in Greek housing should be a priority for intervention and prevention efforts.
Faculty have the potential to alter student drinking behaviors.
After Saturdays and Fridays, students report Thursday as a popular drinking day. Faculty can help reduce the level of Thursday drinking by demanding Friday class attendance and proceeding with Friday exams and other academic deadlines for Friday despite student protest. Parents and relatives are also a frequent source, and we will need to consider how to approach this issue. We need to make students more aware of their rights to expect a less disruptive environment and engage them as allies in our prevention efforts. The Campus Climate Check-up provides some evidence that our culture is changing for the better.