Professor speaks on curbing drinking
Professor Phillip Wood spoke during an event for Alcohol Responsibility Month.
Published Oct. 26, 2007
In the last week of Alcohol Responsibility Month, MU psychology professor Phillip Wood discussed his study that recommends universities offer more Friday morning classes to curb Thursday-night binge drinking.
Wood said 1,700 college students die every year due to alcohol-related incidents before discussing his study, "College Student Alcohol Consumption, Day of the Week, and Class Schedule."
The study was published in July's issue of "Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research."
Wood's study tracked students from MU's 2002 freshman class over four years in college.
The study looked at some of the students' background information, such as where they are from and how much they drink.
Each semester, Wood surveyed the students on their drinking habits.
He then looked up the students' academic schedules and compared them to how much students drink.
The MU Wellness Resource Center sponsors Alcohol Responsibility Month.
"During Alcohol Responsibility Month as a whole, we hope students learn the importance of making good decisions when it comes to alcohol," Wellness Resource Center Director Kim Dude said.
Of those who did not have class Fridays, 54.38 percent of men and 42.78 percent of women chose to drink, compared to 31.21 percent of men and 21.05 percent of women who had 8 a.m. classes, Wood said.
Of those who did not have class Friday and drank Thursday, more than 60 percent chose to binge drink and consumed five or more drinks.
The study found that 31 percent fewer participants had class Fridays at 8 a.m. than other days of the week, he said.
Through the study, Wood identified four risk factors related to problem drinking, including pre-college problematic alcohol use, being a member of a Greek organization, being male and being "low in academic aptitude."
"The Greek environment at MU is an alcohol-saturated environment," Wood said.
Men who are members of Greek chapters drink about two more drinks Thursday nights than those that do not ever participate in Greek
activities.
Wood said campus-wide initiatives need to be taken to reduce drinking.
"Early Friday classes could result in a significant reduction in drinking on Thursday night," Wood said. "I think intervening needs to be done on a campus level. The business and engineering schools do not have class on Friday. They could try not to have their day off always be on Friday."
The University of Iowa plans to shift more classes to Friday mornings beginning next year, according to a previous Maneater report.
MU has no plans to change its Friday class schedule.
About 40 people attended the lecture. Freshman Nick Chaney attended the event as part of a requirement for his Freshman Interest Group.
"I was really surprised by some of the statistics he showed," Chaney said. "I knew lots of students like to drink on Thursday night, but I didn't realize all the other
implications."
Wood said he has plans to continue studying alcohol use among college students.
He said the Midwest Alcoholism Research Center based at MU recently received a 10-year federally funded grant to continue studies.
He said the study would give students handheld devices to record their drinking.
