Joint Task Force Report Sponsored By: The Governor of Pennsylvania &

1. Joint Task Force Report Sponsored By: The Governor of Pennsylvania & The Association of American Universities Ensuring Quality Environments: The Student Experience – 2010 & Beyond

2. Ensuring Quality Environments: The Student Experience – 2010 & Beyond AGENDA • Introduction • Alcohol Abuse on Campus • Reality Versus Perception • Conditions that Contribute to the Challenge • The Role of the University Executive • The Impact of Concerned Student Groups • Diversity & Climate at Penn State • Reality Versus Perception • Conditions that Contribute to the Challenge • Hiring Practices Related to Diversity • The Impact of Concerned Student Groups • Comprehensive Analysis • Recommendations • Combating Alcohol Abuse Holistically • Combating Penn State’s Party School Reputation • Building Diversity at Penn State • State Wide Policies to Foster Positive, Safe & Inclusive Campus Climates • Imploring Our Leaders to Lead • Conclusion • References • Questions

3. Ensuring Quality Environments: The Student Experience – 2010 & Beyond INTRODUCTION: • July 2009, Princeton Review ranks The Pennsylvania State University as the top Party School in the United States • Fall 2009, Alcohol related death of a first-year student on campus • Increased dialogue across the Commonwealth regarding alcohol use on Pennsylvania’s college campuses • Associate of American Universities express concern with the limited level of diversity on Pennsylvania’s and America’s college campuses • October 2009: Task Force Appointed • Charge: How universities and colleges are ensuring quality environments for their students • Alcohol Abuse Issues • Executive Hiring Practices related to diversity and alcohol abuse prevention • Impact of concerned groups • Present recommendations for Penn State • Present recommendations for PASSHE school and the Association of American Universities

4. Ensuring Quality Environments: The Student Experience – 2010 & Beyond Alcohol Abuse on Campus

5. Ensuring Quality Environments: The Student Experience – 2010 & Beyond Perception

6. Ensuring Quality Environments: The Student Experience – 2010 & Beyond Table 3: Comparison of Residents to Alcohol Violations Reality

7. Ensuring Quality Environments: The Student Experience – 2010 & Beyond Conditions that Contribute to the Challenge • Prevalence of the Greek System • Penn State has over 80 Greek chapters at the University Park campus • Large amount of intercollegiate athletics • Penn State has 15 men’s and 14 women’s athletic teams • Location • The northeastern part of the United States has traditionally had higher drinking rates than other parts of the country • Demographic Indicators • White males students are most likely to participate in binge drinking activities • 83% of Penn State students identify as white • 55% of Penn State students are male • Availability • Higher density of establishments that serve alcohol as well as low pricing of alcohol leads to greater consumption (Wechsler, 2001) • Within a mile radius of the downtown State College area there are over 20 places to buy and/or consume alcohol • There is a high prevalence of ‘Happy Hour’ specials which offer drinks to patrons at significantly reduced prices

8. Ensuring Quality Environments: The Student Experience – 2010 & Beyond Table 3: Total Sales of Liquor in Gallons Per Capita in Centre County and Pennsylvania Reality

9. Ensuring Quality Environments: The Student Experience – 2010 & Beyond The Role of the University Executive • Three broad recommendations for the university President by The President Leadership Group (1997) • Be Vocal, Be Visible, and Be Visionary • Ensuring that various university elements communicate and cooperate • The Partnership Campus & Community United Against Dangerous Drinking • The Vice President for Student Affairs and Vice President for University Relations • Involving other line level executive • The Penn State Commission for Substance Abuse Prevention (CSAP) • regarding an executive level administrator to oversee student alcohol abuse issues • University Executive • serve as a nexus for all of the concerned university and community constituents • should be at the Associate Vice President level • maintain to oversee all of the concerns

10. Ensuring Quality Environments: The Student Experience – 2010 & Beyond The Impact of Concerned Student Groups • Focus on Student Groups Combating the Party School Culture • Late Night-Penn State/HUB Late Night • Established September 1996 • Students wanted more late night alcohol free campus activities • Includes at least 5 events every Friday and Saturday night with multiple events also occurring on Thursday and Sunday nights • Late Night-Penn State is a national model for substance free student activity alternatives for students • From it’s start with just a few student leaders, it has now been expanded to include Student Affairs Staff, Food Services Staff, and student run and organized committees

11. Ensuring Quality Environments: The Student Experience – 2010 & Beyond The Impact of Concerned Student Groups • Office of Health Promotion Located inside University Health Services. • 2 major prevention group initiatives: • Health Works Peer Educators • Extensively trained student educators charged with delivering: • engaging, and interactive presentation on health issues-special presentation on alcohol. • create materials such as bulletins boards and posters communicating healthy messages. • Individual Peer Health Educators • BASICS Model – Brief Alcohol Screening and Intervention for College Students. • Trained students, specializing in alcohol intervention. • Both group & individual intervention sessions for students assigned to them. Consultation, education and prevention. • Additional Student Group Resources: • LIFE HOUSE (Living in a Free Environment), • Asylum, • Thinking Before Drinking • PRIDE • The We Are Campaign • SPA • “Safe” Rides • Off Campus Student Union • Fraternities and Sororities (Greek Policies, training and education)

12. Ensuring Quality Environments: The Student Experience – 2010 & Beyond Diversity and Climate at Penn State

13. Ensuring Quality Environments: The Student Experience – 2010 & Beyond Table 5: Perceptions of Community at Penn State Perception *Percents represent those who indicated “substantially” or “extremely” Table taken from Penn State’s Division of Student Affairs PULSE Community Values Report, October 2005

14. Ensuring Quality Environments: The Student Experience – 2010 & Beyond Reality Table 6: Enrollment by Ethnic Category As a Percent of Total Enrollment Fall 2009 *Data taken from Penn State’s Common Data Set

15. Ensuring Quality Environments: The Student Experience – 2010 & Beyond Conditions that Contribute to the Challenge • Identity Development • Challenges of Being One of Few • Lack of Race/Ethnic Minority Faculty • Curricular Content • Culturally Unresponsive Pedagogy • Campus Climate • Culturally Exclusive Environmental Norms • Utilization of Campus Support Systems • Lack of Diversity in Surrounding Community

16. Ensuring Quality Environments: The Student Experience – 2010 & Beyond Hiring Practices Related to Diversity • Hiring Practices”: as a way of changing institutional culture (Richardson, 1994) • change its own cultural direction by hiring skilled executives • send a message both to the internal and external constituencies of the institution

17. Ensuring Quality Environments: The Student Experience – 2010 & Beyond The Impact of Concerned Student Groups • Diversity has become a task for Penn State with the development of many social groups, recruitment efforts, and retention of underrepresented groups. Many of these groups are run by students for the benefit of underrepresented student populations • HUB-Robeson Culture Center • “Safe Space” for underrepresented student groups to interact • Multicultural Resource Center • Offers mentoring and advising. • Houses diverse student groups such as BOTH (Blends of Traditional Heritage) and AASIA (Asian American Students in Action) • Other Multicultural and Diverse Groups Include • Office of Fraternity and Sorority Life • SMART (Student Minority Advisory and Recruitment Team) • Rainbow Roudtable • S-Plan

18. Ensuring Quality Environments: The Student Experience – 2010 & Beyond The Impact of Concerned Student Groups

19. Ensuring Quality Environments: The Student Experience – 2010 & Beyond The Impact of Concerned Student Groups

20. Ensuring Quality Environments: The Student Experience – 2010 & Beyond The Impact of Concerned Student Groups • ‘Penn State University Guidelines for Recruiting A Diverse Workforce’ • Training committee members how to recognize different forms of diversity • include more candidates from underrepresented group • be cognizant of bias during each step of the recruiting process • articulate to all applicants that PSU is an open and welcoming environment • seek out minority candidates by various strategies that reach diverse populations

21. Ensuring Quality Environments: The Student Experience – 2010 & Beyond Comprehensive Analysis

22. Ensuring Quality Environments: The Student Experience – 2010 & Beyond Comprehensive Analysis • Lack of demographic diversity contributes to the party school image at Penn State

23. Ensuring Quality Environments: The Student Experience – 2010 & Beyond Comprehensive Analysis • High risk drinking behavior is relative to the demographics of the university • HBCU vs. PWI • White students at HBCUs drink less drinks per week than White students at PWIs • Positive correlations exist that indicate that the more underrepresented students there are on campus, the less drinking that occurs. • Institutional culture plays a significant role in the party school image • THON, Pan-Hellenic Sororities, Fraternities, and Football are valued • All of these are dominated by White students and have history to indicate that alcohol is a large factor in the lives of students involved • White male students represent the cultural bearers of the institution. • The social constructs that exist that serve as relief from academics are geared towards White male collegiate activities.

24. Ensuring Quality Environments: The Student Experience – 2010 & Beyond Recommendations

25. Ensuring Quality Environments: The Student Experience – 2010 & Beyond Recommendations • Combating Alcohol Abuse Holistically • Combating Penn State’s Party School Reputation • Building Diversity at Penn State • Fostering Inclusive Campuses • Imploring Our Leaders to Lead

26. Ensuring Quality Environments: The Student Experience – 2010 & Beyond References

27. Questions? Task Force Members Phillip Blackman Emil Cunningham Amanda Knerr Lindsay Northup-Moore Seung Wan Nam Amy Salinas Westmoreland