Student Health and Counseling Services (SHCS), along with the Faculty Staff Assistance Program (FSAP), is hosting a week of events highlighting alcohol awareness on campus, which began yesterday.

This week’s main event will be Thursday night’s Amethyst Initiative Town Hall Forum, featuring John McCardell, president emeritus of Middlebury College and founder of the Amethyst Initiative.

The Amethyst Initiative is a group of about 100 college chancellors and presidents that drafted a petition in July that calls for a national discussion on lowering the drinking age.
“[Student Health and Counseling Services] decided that we wanted to show that we are an Emory community of care,” Virginia Plummer, coordinator of alcohol and substance abuse prevention programs, said. “We wanted to bring in several different events that would get people to think about alcohol abuse and find out about resources that can get them some help.”

“Once we heard about Amethyst Initiative, we invited John McCardell. who reopened the discussion of the drinking age and got over a hundred college professors to sign on,” Plummer said.

The forum will consist of a structured question-and-answer panel between McCardell and several faculty members, as well as two students from the Barkley Forum, College seniors Tye Tavaras and Daniyal Inamullah.

SHCS, along with FSAP, will be present at Wonderful Wednesday this week with a meet-and-greet bingo game to publicize the Amethyst issue and Thursday’s event. The week will end with an alcohol-free Fridays@10 event, the Office of Multicultural Programs and Service’s annual “Stud Pageant.”

“By hosting an entire week of events and collaborating with student organizations, Student Health Services has made a tremendous effort to draw students’ attention to issues related to responsible alcohol use,” College Council President Elizabeth Farrar said.

The Student Government Association, College Council, Interfraternity Council, Intersorority Council, Division of Campus Life and the Office of the Dean of the Chapel and Religious Life will be promoting and co-sponsoring Thursday night’s forum.

University President James W. Wagner will not be attending Thursday’s event, but he will be meeting with McCardell Thursday morning to discuss the issue at hand. McCardell will also be meeting with students throughout the day, Plummer said.

Although not scheduled this week, next Thursday night’s panel discussion, “Sustaining a Community of Care: Emory’s Leaders Respond to High Risk Alcohol Use,” is also part of Alcohol Awareness Week. It will feature Wagner, Provost Earl Lewis and other faculty members who will discuss the University’s response to the Amethyst Initiative and the need to create a healthier approach to alcohol use.

“[These two events] are essential [to the week’s events],” Plummer said. “One raises the discussion, the debate and the questions, and the second takes the discussion of alcohol use into a deeper level.”

— Contact Lindsey Bomnin.