The number of student detoxification visits spiked this year, causing some university officials to wonder whether severe winter weather led to stir-crazy students, or if it is yet another sign of risky drinking behavior on campus.
Beginning in January 2009, UW-Madison will have a better sense of the intensity of its drinking culture.
For the first time, all Big Ten police departments are keeping track of the number of student detox transports, at the request of University of Wisconsin Police Chief Susan Riseling.
We've been tracking this stuff for years and one of the things that we found is that we seem to be getting an increase,"" Riseling said.
The number of detox transports has more than doubled since UWPD began keeping record four years ago.
""Our numbers have gone up every year since 2004 - they're alarming,"" UW-Madison Assistant Dean of Students Ervin Cox said. ""The numbers are up and we're very concerned about it.""
UWPD Officer Shane Driscoll said police involvement has not been the catalyst.
""We have not stepped up enforcements,"" Driscoll said. ""We're not looking to take kids to detox. We're not looking to write underage drinking tickets.
""It seems to me that the behaviors related to over-consumption of alcohol are on the rise - that there are more kids drinking to excess.""
UW-Madison started to inquire within the past two years if other Big Ten schools were observing a similar trend, Riseling said.
""Most of them weren't collecting the data, so we didn't know whether we were leading the pack, whether we were average or we have it good. We had no comparison.""
According to Riseling, all conference police departments have tracked the same data since Jan. 1 and will keep track through the end of the year, with the intent to share numbers in January 2009.
Although the other campuses will not be able to compare internally for several years, she said UW-Madison would know where it falls immediately.
""We would, for the first time, be able to see this comparison and then we can make decisions based on what it shows us.""
One challenge facing other universities is the lack of state detoxification facilities. Unlike Wisconsin, where UW-Madison students are taken to the Dane County Detoxification Center, Riseling said some states only have access to hospital emergency rooms.
""Minnesota is most like us in the fact that they have a detoxification center,"" she said. ""They'll be able pretty easily to get the numbers and they may even be able to go back and find out old numbers.""
Shifting the drinking culture
Both Cox and Driscoll said the city and the university are working to change UW-Madison's drinking culture and students' dangerous drinking habits.
One such step is to decrease the density of bars near campus.
""That's so hard to do, and, in the state of Wisconsin, that'll just take time,"" Driscoll said. ""The trend, at least as far as detox transports, is we're not heading in the right direction yet.""
Cox said another step to decreasing numbers in the fall, when the most detox transports occur, was the introduction of the ""Show and Blow"" breathalyzer program during the 2007 football season. The university plans to continue the breathalyzer tests next fall.
""Football is a major, major problem for us with alcohol,"" Cox said, adding though some signs of improvement in student awareness of dangerous drinking exist, it is an ""uphill battle.""
""There's still this culture we're up against '¦ We're up against a multi-million dollar industry, a multi-billion dollar industry.
