ACUHO-I News Blog

With the Olympics complete, all eyes are now turning to the politics game. As the political conventions are in full-swing in the United States, the interest will only rise and college campuses can become active sites of debate and campaigning.

How important a role will college students play in the upcoming presidential election? A study by the Center for Information and Research Civic Learning and Education (CIRCLE) explains that 79 percent of the youth in the 2008 Super Tuesday primaries on February 5 had attended college. It also noted that one in four eligible young voters with college experience voted on that day, compared to only one in 14 eligible individuals with no college experience. Fortunately, there are a number of initiatives working to engage students to be productive partners in the process.

The National Campus Voter Registration Project is making news with its Your Vote Your Voice program. The informative Web site offers practical and applicable information regarding election laws and policies as well as guidelines on how to organize campus voter registration drives.

The Campus Compact Web site has details on its Campus Vote Initiative, designed to encourage higher institutions to educate and empower students to stay engaged throughout  the election. Author Paul Loeb — who many of you may remember from his presentation at the 2007 ACUHO-I Annual Conference & Exposition in Seattle — has also taken on the cause of engaging students in the electoral process and has created his own starter’s guide to organizing a non-partisan voter registration drive.

And, as a registered Generation Xer, I would be completely remiss if I didn’t include Rock the Vote.

Finally, NASPA has made a number of voting resources available on its Web site including details about discovering whether or not your campus is in compliance with the 1998 reauthorization of the Higher Education Act, in which it was mandated all colleges and universities participating in federal student aid programs must make a good-faith effort to distribute voter registration forms to students.

Will it be a hot campaign season on your campus? Do you have plans and programs in mind for voter registration? Share your thoughts and check back as we highlight some stand-out programs we’ve heard of.

We can’t stop talking about the Amethyst Initiative that is. Y’know, the petition signed by…let’s check the ticker here…129 chancellors and presidents at universities and colleges throughout the US advocating a “dispassionate debate” on the drinking age. The debate would be about, specifically, raising the drinking age, preferably to 45.

Just kidding!

Anyway, the Chronicle of Higher Education has helpfully gathered two professionals, on opposing sides of the debate, to offer their views.

William G. Durden, President of Dickinson College is on the pro side. He points out that the Amethyst Initiative is not necessarily arguing the drinking age be moved to 18; rather: “It does state the 128 signatories’ belief that it is time for our nation to engage in a serious debate about alternative approaches to underage and binge drinking and to examine whether current public policies are in line with current realities.” He argues that the current law and abstinence rhetoric are obviously not working, and in fact drive students to more secretive and dangerous behaviors. Often, he says, college students’ dangerous drinking activities are unrelated to driving, but endanger their lives in other ways. He points to other countries’ lower drinking ages, which are reinforced, he says, by extensive alcohol education and severe penalties for dangerous and destructive behaviors, such as drunken driving.

William DeJong, a professor of social and behavioral sciences at Boston University’s School of Public Health, points to studies showing a reduction in alcohol-related deaths and no greater alcohol use on campus than there was 21 years ago, when the drinking age was upped. He replies to Durden’s point about foreign countries’ alcohol laws with the example of New Zealand: In 1999, that country lowered the drinking age from 20 to 18. “The result,” DeJong says, ”was a dramatic upswing in traffic crashes and injuries among 15- to 19-year-olds.” He advocates a variety of prevention and education measures, from “specific guidance on how to keep their blood-alcohol concentration in a safer range” for students who do drink, to the usual restrictions of alcohol-laden advertising and purchasing opportunities.

What do you think of their arguments? My initial thought is that it’s a pity we couldn’t read a dialogue between these two, each responding to and countering the other’s viewpoints, and possibly finding middle ground.

The latest in a series of books with literal one-word titles, Nudge explains that our free-will is not our own, and that our decisions are heavily influenced by the choices we’re given and how these options are presented.

Authors Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein discuss examples from 401K plans to supermarket layouts. Everyone’s heard about how producers pay for product placement at supermarkets. In some ways the book repackages things we already know (i.e.: buy insurance with the highest deductable possible; invest aggressively in your retirement fund).

But of course, I thought of ACUHO-I’s members when I read the NY Times book review on Nudge. ACUHO-I’s members are often trying to persuade people - mainly students - to make certain choices over others, but the tricky part is doing this without the source of the persuasion being obvious. If students think the administration at their school would particularly like them to choose one option over another, they might be less inclined to do so. The mask of Authority tends to blunt the attractiveness of that option.

What are your “nudges” aimed at students? How would you like to “nudge” them, but can’t figure out how? How are you “nudged” in your daily life?

Early this week, we heard a lot in the news about college presidents who had signed a petition advocating re-thinking the drinking age: specifically, considering the costs and benefits of lowering it to 18 again. Some signers argue that raising the drinking age to 21 has caused more problems than it solved, by encouraging an underground drinking culture, the use of fake IDs and “preloading,” i.e.: drinking heavily in seclusion before a night out on the town.

The New York Times writes today that two presidents, Kendall Blanchard of Georgia Southwestern State University in Americus, GA and Robert M. Franklin of Morehouse College in Atlanta, recinded their signatures. Blanchard told the NYT he felt critics misunderstood the petition’s intended purpose, to start a dialogue, and instead thought it is “some kind of effort on our part to turn our schools into party schools.”

Yup, because college and university presidents love for their institutions to be known as “Ibiza, But With Football”.

However, 15 more presidents have signed on, resulting in 123 signatories, some from household names such as Dartmouth, Duke, Tufts and Ohio State. Of course, the petition has its detractors, namely the Governors’ Highway Safety Administration and Mothers Against Drunk Driving.

What do you think about the proposed “dispassionate public debate”?

As our members welcome students to campus and help freshmen get acclimated to college life, I wanted to share this great story from the Chronicle of Higher Education on how Houston’s Rice University (and their football players–very useful for moving sofas) handle move-in. The accompanying photo is by Rice University photographer Tommy LaVergne.

The folks at Unviersity Business decided that if ACUHO-I can have themselves a residence hall competition, they can too, and they’ll use the dreaded “D-word” while doing it.

“Dorms of Distinction” highlights residences with choicey amenities; innovative designs and aesthetically pleasing details. If you need inspiration, this list is a good start. The evaluation team noted the distinctive halls often had several things in common:

Student input heavily informed much of the design, furnishings and amenities of many of the halls. The buildings have a homey feel; many feature furnishings similar to those in private homes; many have private bedrooms and smaller bathrooms that look more like those in houses. Finally, most of the halls have plenty of comfortable and inviting common areas, where residents can gather.

If you’re building, consider hosting one of the 21st Century Project prototype halls.

“It is also not deliberately designed to make readers feel really old!”

That’s a disclaimer from the introduction to the 2008 Beloit College Mindset List from the study authors, Ron Nief, Director of Public Affairs and Tom McBride, Keefer Professor of the Humanities and Professor of English. Intentional or not, however, that’s the result.

This year’s freshmen-the class of 2012-enter college with the following life experience:

• Seinfeld has always existed.
• The doctor has always used an ear thermometer for temperature-taking.
• The Tonight Show has always been hosted by Jay Leno.
• IBM has never made typewriters.
• Harry Potter would be a college freshman now. (If you needcollege after finishing at Hogwart’s.)

Now that we’ve tortured ourselves with that (more at the link if you’re masochistic), this 2000 grad (that’s two years before the first Beloit Mindset for those of you keeping score) is going to take a Centrum Silver (circa. 1990) and lie down for a little while.

The youth…they are so young.

Elephants take 22 months to gestate. HERA took 60 months.

But our HERA has finally been “born,” signed into law yesterday by President Bush, despite the administration’s objections to the numerous grants included in the legislation. HERA is definitely a bouncing chunk o’ legislation, with 1,158 pages and many regulations, mandates and programs. Now “negotiated rulemaking” begins, a process in which the Department of Education determines exactly what the 1,158 pages mean, and how to enforce the regulations.

Stay tuned. We’ll send pictures of the first steps when we get ‘em.

We don’t need to tell you that it’s “that time of year.” At least in North America, the Sunday newspaper circulars are filled with ads from stores like Target and Bed Bath and Beyond touting the just right bed spreads, chairs, lamps, posters, rugs, shower caddies, and more for the college student heading out on his or her own. (And we didn’t even mention the computers, music players, televisions, etc.) Plus, plug “dorm” into the Google news alerts and you will find an endless stream of stories offering advice on what students need to bring to campus.

This time last year we saw stories about the sheer amount of stuff students bring to campus. And while we’re sure the mini-vans that drop the kids off this year will still be overflowing, the National Retail Federation reported that the struggling economy caused back-to-college spending to drop seven percent in the last year, down to an average of $599.38.

In a press release, the group explained that spending in most categories will drop or remain flat except for electronics like computers and cell phones. This year, parents will spend $151.61 on electronics purchases during the back-to-school timeframe, up from $129.24 last year.

Survey results also showed that it looked like the traditional college bookstore will suffer the greatest hit, as only 41 percent planned to buy from those stores, compared to 57 percent in 2007.

For more about move-in programs and trends, check out the cover story from the May+June 2008 issue of the Talking Stick magazine, available online in a convenient digital format.

The ACUHO-I central office has been inundated with journalists’ requests for information and comments; the number of students living in residence halls in the US (2.6 million)*; the percentage of students living on-campus (average for all schools is 54.8)** and how much students spend on back-to-college gear (average of $599.38 each).***

We’ve also gotten some calls about the timeless issue of roommate conflict and the “luxury” halls some students now have available to them.

Is your move-in ongoing? Already finished? Still upcoming? Check out the stories below and then take a moment and share your challenges, headaches and little victories here.

• Customize Your Dorm…and Your Roommate?
• “Free Tanning, Movie Theatres, Pool: Dorm Life for the McMansion Generation”
• “College Roommates get vetted online before dorms even open”

* Source: US Census, Population in Group Quarters
** Source: College Housing 2005 Special Report by Paul Abramsen, in 21st Century Project Reading Compendium, Dunkel & Baumann, Eds., 2006.
*** Source: National Retail Federation