Mather HoCo To Address Drinking

The Mather House Council (HoCo) will serve up a message of alcohol awareness along with the usual snacks and beverages at a Masters’ Open House this Friday.

According to HoCo Co-Chair Jessica L. Jones ’06, the student-organized event will include “an interactive system of displays to be set-up around the masters’ residence.”

“While students are milling around chatting they can observe our materials, digest the information we are providing them in a low-pressure environment, and discuss the displays with their friends,” Jones wrote in an e-mail.

Jones wrote that the purpose of the displays is to provide “tools” to help students understand the meaning of moderate drinking so that they can avoid consuming excessive amounts of alcohol.

“Examples of these displays would include recipes and samples of mocktinis and other non-alcoholic drinks, or a demonstration of what level of fullness of a Solo cup constitutes one shot, or a poster describing roughly which amounts of alcohol will produce which effects on people of different body weights,” Jones wrote.

Nicholas G. Jameson ’06, the social chair, said the idea behind the Solo cup demonstration is to better equip students to keep track of how much they are drinking at social events.

“People at parties just kind of pour things carelessly,” he said.

Jameson added that the “mocktails” and “mocktinis” provided at the open house will be served in foam cups supplied by the Community Health Initiative. The cups have facts and myths about alcohol consumption printed on them.

According to Jones, the HoCo chose to incorporate alcohol awareness into one of the bi-weekly open houses because these events are popular with students.

“We wanted to throw an event to raise awareness of the risks of excessive alcohol consumption in Mather that would be both informative and fun,” Jones wrote. “We did not want this event to be preachy [or] pedantic, so we decided against bringing in a speaker, or throwing an event whose sole focus was alcohol awareness.”

Director of Alcohol and Substance Abuse Services Ryan M. Travia said that focusing on alcohol awareness during the Mather open house is “not part of any larger, intentional efforts.” He said that his office did attempt to assist in the planning of the event after Kate J. Drake, a Mather wellness tutor, contacted him.

“She just wanted to brainstorm about some ideas that she could present back to HoCo,” Travia said. “We gave them a series of products and information from our office.”

According to Jameson, the open house is “supposed to encourage discussion and conversation.” He said that while the alcohol awareness component is scheduled specifically for this week’s open house, the HoCo has discussed holding similar events in the future as well.

He said the HoCo wishes to encourage attendees to reflect on the amount of alcohol they consume.

“The objective is to make sure that people are having fun but also that they’re being responsible,” Jameson said. “We’re just trying to encourage people to be aware of what they’re getting into on the weekends.”

—Staff writer Matthew S. Lebowitz can be reached at mslebow@fas.harvard.edu.