The Dialogue

Question: Should the parents of college students be informed if their child has an alcohol abuse problem?

Yes, we should never downplay the role parents play in students' lives.
Lyn Countryman*

Parents spend a lifetime getting to understand their young adults. Educators need to tap into this knowledge base and use it to provide support for students.

For my part, as an educator, I feel it is my responsibility to help undergraduates grow -- academically and as people. To this end, I feel I have a responsibility to address problems of poor choices and suspected abuse, especially among my younger students.

This is difficult when dealing with a person in the throes of young adulthood, as are many undergraduates. Young adulthood is a stage where students are in a era of self definition.

Some have not decided who they will be yet, and many are breaking free of the supervision and structure provided in high school when they were living at home. In college these students are free to make many of their own choices, and, given the difficulties of growing up in a very confusing era, sometimes these choices are not the best ones.

If we are to address a problem of student alcohol abuse, we need to intervene and confront the student, providing assistance by professionals in student counseling. If this is not successful, a team of support professionals needs to confront the student to seek a solution. The parents need to be part of this team.

Confidentiality is an issue, but we can address this by letting students know we are contacting their parents. A student surrounded by a team of concerned professionals and family has the best change to overcome the problem of abuse.

* Lyn Countryman is an associate professor at the University of Northern Iowa in the Department of Teaching.

No, for one thing, such a practice is a violation of a students right to privacy.
Karin Hilgersom *

For another, many of today's students are well past the age where their parents are responsible for them.

Making someone else responsible for a student's behavior -- regardless of the chronological age of a student -- is a bad idea. Paternalistic approaches like this weaken a student's ability to learn from mistakes and ask faculty to make judgments they aren't qualified to make -- and aren't comfortable making.

I rest my case on a two-fold presumption. First, higher education offers a rite of passage into adulthood. Second, "higher" learning -- with its connections and caveats, truths and tribulations -- is best achieved when the relationship between faculty and student is one of adult to adult, not one of adult to child.

To treat students at the college level as children is to belittle what I believe learning at the college level is all about: a journey by expert and enthusiast into the realm of connection, and, if luck prevails, original thought.

At the very least, higher education is a game of truth and consequence, responsibility and guided practice. And like most worthwhile endeavors, this involves risk.

So I encourage faculty who think that alcohol abuse is damaging the life of a student to sit down with that student, adult to adult, and offer help. This help may involve suggesting the student discuss his or her alcohol use with parents. The faculty member might also provide community resource phone numbers and a sincere wish that the student realize the power a sober education can provide.

* Karin Hilgersom teaches speech communications and women's studies at Spokane Community College in Washington.

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