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Inside Higher Ed has a piece on a report (PDF) released yesterday that takes aim at gambling on campus and how to curb it, an important task given that between 3 and 11 percent of college students have serious gambling problems. The report included ten recommendations “aimed at reframing how institutions tackle gambling issues.”
This didn’t make sense to me, though:
George S. McClellan, vice chancellor for student affairs at Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne, said “all the recommendations are spot on” and in line with the ideas being considered and implemented at institutions across the United States.
For colleges to effect real change in students’ attitudes, he said, they must adopt “an ethical and consistent framework on gambling,” something suggested in the report. “If the college takes lottery money to fund scholarships, if it takes gaming money to support scholarships, if it allows the licensing of its logo on poker table … then there’s a gap between what we say and what we do and students will head through that in an eyeblink.”
While it’s probably not good as a matter of principle for colleges to take funds from these sources, I’m skeptical about any link between these activities and student gambling addiction rates. If a college kid is sitting bleary-eyed at his computer at 5 a.m. on a 16-hour online Texas Hold ‘Em binge, does it make sense that this would have anything to do with whether or not his school takes lottery money or slaps its logo on poker tables? Nope. He’s addicted to poker because at some point someone introduced him to poker, it has a certain effect on his brain due to certain features of said brain, and neurology cruelly took over from there.
That’s not to say that you can’t impact students by making an effort to explicitly and forcefully define what is and isn’t harmful behavior, and to have these definitions perpetuate through the students’ social networks, but this seems pretty far removed from sponsorship and lottery funding arrangements.
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Disputo on September 30, 2009 8:54 PM:
It's called modeling good behavior.
Every (good) parent figures this out sooner or later.
Ellen on October 01, 2009 10:03 AM:
I wonder if Mr.McClellan would see a disconnect between the UC Davis' efforts against underage & binge drinking and the fact that it has a top viticulture & enology program?
cthulhu on October 01, 2009 1:35 PM:
I'm a drug dependence researcher and treatment specialist. I would agree that the initiation of gambling dependence has nothing to do with the University's indirect associations with gambling behavior; it is very much individual constitutional and behavioral history factors that predict future dependence. However, the issue of the "moral status" of those providing "treatment" tends to become a big issue to those already addicted. People in an addiction cycle very commonly grasp onto the behavior of others, especially those in paternalistic roles, as a way to excuse their continuing dependence or to justifying their inability to maintain abstinence. Yes, it is a lame method of treatment resistance but one which experienced clinicians are very much aware. In fact, an authority institution that admits to its own poor choices may very well play better with the recovery crowd than one that refuses to acknowledge any hypocrisy however minor.
While there are some clients that thrive under the pressure of an apparently "perfect" moral agent, the vast majority prefer the opening of "You've made mistakes. So have I. It is different, sure, but to be able to correct things requires acknowledging things that seemed fine really weren't fine. I had to do this - how about you?"
So I would say that the University should divest itself of gambling promotion while, at the the same time, openly cop to the Institution's own past complicity when intervening with students. Modeling emotional and intellectual growth is a powerful teaching aid.