By: Michael Wafford

Senior Staff Writer

From April 15 to 18 the Alcohol and Drug Education Committee held a series of alcohol screenings and  awareness activities, and gave students information about alcohol at California State University Bakersfield.

This week what we’re doing is screening our students for their drinking behavior. How often are they drinking? How much are they drinking? What that does is give us some statistics on our student drinking on campus,” said Erika Delamar, head of the  CSUB Alcohol and Drug Education Committee.

The screenings involved a questionnaire. Based on the answers, students are given a score ranging from zero to 40.  iI the score is toward the upper end, 19 or more, it is recommended that the test-taker see a health care provider for an evaluation or seek counseling at CSUB or at an off-campus center.

CSUB’s drinking patterns do not point toward one particular pattern of behavior for the campus as a whole base don the number of alcohol-related violations occur on campus every year according to Delamar.

It’s kind of a mix. You have those students who don’t drink, and then we have those students who do drink but we would say that their drinking isn’t displaying any concern. And, then we do have students who do have some issues of concern when their patterns come back,” said Delamar.

Most of the time that tends to be that they’re drinking too many drinks in a single setting or they’re experiencing negative consequences of their drinking. An example of that would be that they’re getting injured when they’re drinking, or they’re failing to do things when they’re drinking like they’re hungover and don’t make to to class the next day,” said Delamar.

Alcohol awareness activites are mandated on every CSU campus and have been since 2001. These mandates required the school to update their drug and alcohol policies and creatign outreach events according to Delamar.

We get a good turnout [at outreach events]. We try to do a variety of events. So we do educational events to the more fun kind of outreach. At out fall event we had over 500 students participate and about 325 in our winter event,” said Delamar.

Delamar said that they do assess their events for student learning. If the event does not educate students effectively they’ll change the event to better teach them “in a fun way.”

For CSUB’s current campus alcohol policy, according to Delamar, drinking is permitted on campus in designated areas like The Roost and during events where the serving of alcohol has been allowed as long as the drinker is 21. Alcohol is allowed in the dorms as long as everyone in the area is 21 years-old or older, even if those under 21 are not drinking.

According to CSUB’s campus crimes disclosure for 2012, which covers the 2010-2011 academic year, there were five alcohol related violations and one drug violation for that time period on the main campus. The Antelope Valley location reporter no alcohol or drug based crimes during that same time period.

Delamar describes CSUB as “not having a lot of violations.” In the past three years there have been 14 alcohol-related on campus at CSUB and in the residence halls. In comparison schools with populations near CSUB’s 8,111 students, CSU Humboldt, with 8116 enrolled for the current year, reported 56 arrests in the same time span. Sonoma State University, with a population of 9021, reported 70 alcohol related arrests. CSU Dominguez Hills has had zero arrests related to alchohol violations in the last three years.

Resources on and around CSUB

CSUB Student Health Center located near parking lot E

661-654-2394

CSUB Counseling Center located in Student Health Center Building

661-654-3366

Alcoholics Anonymous are held on Mondays at 3-4 p.m. during the spring 2013 quarter in the Student Health Center and are open to the public.