A MISGUIDED EFFORT?

Augustana administrators like to keep tabs on the student body, especially when it comes to topics like alcohol and drug use. But students aren't always truthful when it comes to their social activities and the powers that be.

Every other November, Augustana College delivers the Core Alcohol and Drug Survey to each student's inbox. The last survey, conducted in the fall of 2009, revealed interesting findings about the influence of drugs and alcohol on the student body. But if students don't answer questions honestly, these results turn out to be nothing more than a joke.

Augustana began using the Alcohol and Other Drug (AOD) survey in 1993, and has offered it to the student body every other November, one week before Thanksgiving since.

The survey Augustana uses is a nationally recognized drug and alcohol survey, supplied by the Core Institute at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. The purpose of the survey, according to the Core Institute, is to "help any institution understand the drinking and drug norms of their college campus."

Augustana Dean of Students Jim Bies said the college uses the AOD to compare Augustana with other four-year colleges and the data set is equally distributed across the student body.

"It's an environmental survey," Bies said. "And what we're most concerned with is what students believe to be the environment on Augustana's campus."

The survey's key findings, according to a presentation compiled by Bies, revealed that men at Augustana drink 13 percent more than women and students over-estimate their classmates' use of alcohol.

"Augustana students believe that 82 percent of their classmates use alcohol at least once a week, but only 34 percent of students report drinking once a week or more," Bies said.

And while the survey does consider alcohol a type of drug, results are available for specific drugs as well.

"Over 90 percent of students said they would prefer to not have drugs available at the parties they attend," Bies said. "In 2001, 86 percent of students felt that way at Augustana, so that has been consistent over the years."

Given these results, Bies believes in the AOD as a tool for the administration to see into the students' perception of their school and their peers.

"We've got a lot of confidence in the Core survey, that's why we do it every two years," he said. "It's important because it gives the college a chance to see how Augie students view their college compared to other schools."

This confidence, however, may be unfounded, as students don't seem to take the AOD seriously. Of eighteen students studying in the Huddle, sixteen admitted to lying on the AOD. Two consented to interview, yet would not allow their real names to be published for fear of administrative repercussions.

Taylor, a member of the class of 2013, took the AOD in November of 2009. Like many students, the lure of a possible prize was enough motivation to complete the survey.

But Taylor, who had never drank or taken drugs, lied pervasively throughout the survey.

"I figured other people lie about what they actually do, so I was going to lie about what I don't do," Taylor said. "And my piss is clean, so if they tested me, I wasn't going to get in any trouble."