Public Demand Prompts University of Minnesota to Make Online Class on Alcohol Use Available to All Parents

MINNEAPOLIS and ST. PAUL, Minn., June 5 /PRNewswire/ -- With tragic alcohol-related deaths of teenagers in the news and the reports of high-risk drinking among college and high school students, the University of Minnesota is offering a tool to parents to help prevent their students from making bad decisions when it comes to drinking.

The tool is the online course "Seminar for Parents: Alcohol Use on Campus." The class was originally targeted to parents of U of M, Twin Cities' students three years ago, but many other universities started turning to the U of M for the course and now public demand has also grown, said Marjorie Savage, University of Minnesota Parent Program coordinator. Savage developed the alcohol use class in conjunction with U of M family social science professor Jodi Dworkin, who specializes in youth development.

One of the largest challenges facing higher education as well as high schools today is alcohol misuse and abuse, so schools must try many different approaches to reduce high-risk drinking, Savage said.

"Recently there has been a national call for engaging parents of college students as partners in alcohol education. We at the University of Minnesota have taken on this challenge and developed an online course for parents to change the culture of drinking on college campuses," Savage said. The U of M was the first university in the nation to offer an online class to parents regarding student life. In fact, many colleges and universities including Georgia Tech, North Carolina State and Hamline University have turned to the U of M to help create a course that would be specific to their campus.

Reaching out to the parents of high school students through this class is important, Dworkin said.

"Research has found that young adults who were first drunk before age 19 are significantly more likely to become alcohol dependent, report frequent high-risk drinking and suffer severe injuries as a result of drinking," Dworkin said.

The high school years are a critical time for parents to intervene and prepare their students for college, Dworkin said. Even students who don't drink are impacted by the negative consequences of alcohol use when their friends or roommates drink or when others drive under the influence of alcohol, she said.

The U of M online course provides tips for family conversations about alcohol, advice from other parents and college students, statistics on college drinking and a list of available resources. "This class gives us one more way to reach students and that is through their parents," Savage said.

Today's parents of college students are much more involved in their child's life compared with a generation ago, so offering this course to parents is important, Savage said.

"While we know that parents cannot monitor a student's drinking on a regular basis, research shows that parents continue to influence their child's behavior during the college years," Savage said.

Parents do have an impact, Dworkin said. "Providing parents with research-based information that has been proven effective in preventing alcohol use and abuse empowers them as effective alcohol educators," Dworkin said. "They can tailor the content and the timing of content delivery to meet the needs of their student."

This program is confidential, it can easily be disseminated to parents at a low cost and it can quickly and easily be kept up-to-date. Parents can take the online course at their convenience. The course can be purchased for $20. To get started, visit: http://projects.cehd.umn.edu/parentseminar/onlinePortal/

Contact: Patty Mattern, University News Service, (612) 624-2801