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  February 6, 2006
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campus newS

Council may suggest that freshmen attend substance abuse education program
By Larry B. Dendy
ldendy@uga.edu
The University Council will hear information at its Feb. 9 meeting about a possible plan to require first-year students to participate in a mandatory substance abuse education program. The meeting will be at 3:30 p.m. in room 300 of the Fine Arts Building.

The council’s Student Affairs Committee, which has been studying the possibility of such a requirement since last fall, will present data on substance abuse among college students and seek council approval to explore creating a mandatory program, according to committee chair Richard Dunham.

Carole Middlebrooks, director of the state office of substance abuse in higher education, will lead the presentation. At a meeting of the council’s Executive Committee late last month, Middlebrooks and Dunham distributed results of a survey showing that alcohol consumption and marijuana and cocaine use reported by UGA students exceeded national rates in 2005.

Dunham says the Student Affairs Committee has no firm idea at this point of a format or structure for an education program. One possibility could be online programs provided by private companies. Whatever the format, the requirement would be that every first-year student successfully complete the program by the end of their first semester, Dunham says. The goal would be to have the program in place by fall semester of this year.

Dunham says that while the committee has been exploring a mandatory education program for several months, the idea takes on more urgency with the reported alcohol-and-drug related death of a UGA first-year student in January.

“We need to step up our efforts and look seriously at getting this in place as soon as possible,” he says.

Other items on the council agenda include:
• A proposed new policy on composition of search and screening committees for new deans;
• A proposed revision of the University Statutes article governing the university president’s veto powers over council decisions;
• A proposed clarification of university policy on incomplete grades; and
• A proposal to change the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies to the Latin American and Caribbean Studies Institute and to offer an undergraduate major in Latin American and Caribbean studies

Meetings are open to the public but only elected council members are allowed to speak and vote.
 


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