How a Notorious Party School Is Trying to Clean Up Its Act

The University of Vermont has a long, well-deserved reputation as a party school. “Groovy U,” its nickname since the ’60s, is a place where students ride bikes naked and light up on the campus green.

Yet it’s also a place where, increasingly, students now are choosing meditation over marijuana, and brain science over booze.

This year almost 900 UVM freshmen — nearly a third of the incoming class — signed up for Wellness Environment, an innovative program that is using neuroscience against a culture of drug use and binge drinking. They’ve pledged not to drink or do drugs in their dormitory, risking eviction if they do so.

But the program, known as WE, goes well beyond the chem-free dorms that have existed on college campuses for decades. There’s a required course on brain health, free gym classes and violin lessons, and plenty of social programming. And WE doesn’t just punish rule-breakers — it educates students about the neurological consequences of unhealthy decisions, and rewards them for making healthy ones.

Can a Wellness Program Curb Risky Behavior?

The Wellness Environment at the University of Vermont marries cognitive science to holistic self-care. The program is popular, growing, and shows preliminary signs of success. But some students resent it and find it divisive.

• Add Skeptical Inquiry to Clean Living
• Incentives for Healthy Habits

For Emily Goodrich, a sophomore who was “not a partyer” in high school, the program was a major selling point for the university. “I had a lot of anxiety about coming to college,” she says. “WE made the transition easier. It was a way to keep my values as I went to school.”

Already the program has contributed to a reduction in the number of drug and alcohol violations on campus. Proponents say it has the potential to increase retention, reduce the need for mental-health services, and maybe even change the university’s culture and image. Dozens of institutions have expressed interest in copying the idea.

Still, the program has its detractors — other students chief among them. Some resent the fact that WE students get free passes to fitness classes and exclusive access to gyms in their freshman and sophomore dorms. Others see the program as cliquish, even divisive.

Kevin Smith, a sophomore, says he’s “not against healthy living;” he just doesn’t like to see students split up into different environments. “IF UVM wants to push healthy living, they should do it for all students, not segregate it,” he says.

But the biggest source of tension seems to be the fancy new dorm that UVM built for the program, with its own dining hall, fitness center (with trainers and a yoga studio) and covered bridge to the library. Many students suspect freshmen are picking the program for the dorm, and aren’t really committed to the chem-free lifestyle. When the president introduced the WE dorm during freshman convocation, some students booed.

Annie Stevens, vice provost for student affairs, says the scrutiny is only natural for a program that has pushed boundaries and has grown tenfold in its three years.

“We’re busting the myth that you have to do alcohol and drugs,” she says. “When you challenge that norm, you’re going to get pushback.”

Informed Consent

Wellness Environment is the brainchild of James J. Hudziak, a pediatric neuropsychiatrist on UVM’s medical-school faculty.

He believes that our environments matter even more than our genes, and that we can change the substance and structure of our brains by changing our behaviors. His research has shown that mindfulness and music can be more effective than drugs in treating psychiatric illness in children.

So when his daughter enrolled at Vermont, three years ago, Hudziak decided it was time to test his theories on college students, whose brains are still developing.

He took the idea to Stevens, who recalls having two reactions: “This is perfect,” and “I have no idea how we’re going to pull this off.”

There were logistical challenges — finding housing and marketing the new program among them — and risks, too. Would students sign up? Would they fill the dorm?

The university already had a substance-free dorm and other themed residence halls, but what Hudziak was proposing was bolder, a sort of marriage of neuroscience and student affairs. “A lot of people were hesitant, because it’s such a big idea,” Stevens says. But “it was the kind of big idea that was perfect for where we were at the time.”

In 2014, UVM was in the middle of a five-year push to reduce high-risk underage drinking among its students. The proposed program, she reasoned, could help with prevention.

And the student-affairs office wouldn’t bear all the risk. It would pay for a program director, but Hudziak would donate his time and help cover the cost of the gym passes (which the athletic department agreed to offer at a reduced rate) out of funds from his endowed chair. All told, Wellness Environment would cost the university about $200,000 the first year.

The program started small, with 118 students, but grew quickly. This year there were 1,180 at the start of the year, including 891 freshmen. A $1.8-million, three-year grant from the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation now covers the cost of the gym passes.

The premise of WE is simple: If you provide students with information about the impact of their decisions, and incentivize them to make good choices, they will. In the required course, “Healthy Brains, Healthy Bodies: Surviving and Thriving in College,” students are shown scans of brains that have benefited from exercise and good nutrition and of those damaged by alcohol and drug use. Students say the science is presented in a matter-of-fact way, without judgment or sermonizing.

“It’s ‘here’s the info. I’m not your parent. I’m not your moral compass,’ " Goodrich says. “It’s up to you to make your own decisions.”

Alistair Murphy, a freshman in the program, likens the lectures to “informed consent” — “so if you smoke or drink, you will understand the repercussions.”

Hudziak says he doesn’t expect students to abstain entirely, but he’s confident that informed students will choose alternatives, if colleges only offer them. So when the naked bike ride rolls around, each December, WE holds a talent show. And when the annual “smokeout” takes place, at 4:20 on April 20, WE holds a 5K run.

“At universities, there are too many opportunities to make unhealthy choices,” Hudziak says. “If you give people in this transitional age an opportunity to make healthy choices, they will make healthy choices.”

When they do, they’re rewarded with WE coins — virtual money that they can use to purchase stickers, sweatshirts, and other swag. Students can earn coins for attending yoga classes, choosing a kale smoothie, or mentoring a younger student, for example.

Statistics show that WE students are somewhat less likely to get into trouble with the campus or city police than their non-WE peers are. Last year, 5 percent of WE participants had at least one alcohol- or drug-related charge, compared with 7 percent of non-WE students.

Of course, not all students make healthy choices. Students in Wellness Environment are free to drink outside the dorms (assuming they’re of age), and some return so intoxicated or high that they disrupt the environment or need medical treatment.

So far this year, 14 students have been removed from the program’s two substance-free dorms for violations of the WE code — which says they must keep drugs and alcohol “and their influence” out of the living space.

More troubling, though, are the students who haven’t returned to the dorm, or sought help, because they’re afraid of being kicked out of the building. Several students said they know classmates who have stayed outside in the cold so they wouldn’t get caught, or whose roommates haven’t called for medical help, so as to “protect” them.

That bothers some teetotalers like Chris Krag, a freshman who doesn’t “like the fact that people feel they have to hide the fact that they drink and sneak around.”

And it worries some campus administrators. This past fall administrators updated the WE code to clarify that students seeking help under the college’s medical-amnesty program would be exempt from removal from the dorm.

“Our policy is student safety first,” says Hudziak.

Groovy No More?

Each “Healthy Brains, Healthy Bodies” class begins and ends with meditation. The course includes guest lecturers on topics as varied as cannabis and concussions. On a recent Monday evening, the speaker was Jon Kabat-Zinn, an emeritus professor at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, who has developed mindfulness-based stress-reduction techniques.

As students file in and take their seats, Hudziak tosses them a brain-shaped football — a weekly ritual he uses “to get their attention and get them focused.” One student walking down the aisle fumbles it. “Butterfingers,” she says with an un-self-conscious laugh.

When the students are settled, he reminds them to put away any electronics and notebooks — they don’t take notes in this class — and to listen to Krag play the electric violin. “Let’s honor the silence,” Hudziak says.

Later, Kabat-Zinn will tell the students that they’re lucky to have been offered “an alternative that honors the value of being present, of paying attention to what you put in your body.”

“You’re not going to say no to alcohol, no to sex, but you’re going to enter into it in a way that is awake,” he says. “You’re taking control. You’re asserting agency.”

Many colleges offer some form of wellness programming, like cooking classes, mindfulness groups, or finals-week massages. Such efforts typically are run by student health services or the counseling center, and they’re often scattered across campus.

Few institutions have taken as comprehensive an approach as UVM, which has built a program that spans departments and comprises all aspects of student well-being — mental, physical, and social. The university has created a community of like-minded students and put the programming where those students spend much of their time: their dorm.

“The goal is to change the whole environment,” says David Arnold, a senior director at Naspa: Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education. “So instead of fishing the sick fish out of the pond, cleaning them up, and throwing them back in, we’re cleaning the pond.”

Another thing that sets UVM’s program apart is its emphasis on education. Wellness Environment doesn’t just tell students not to drink or smoke — it shows them the science of why that behavior is bad for them. And that makes them more likely to listen, says Nance Roy, an assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at Yale University and chief clinical officer at the Jed Foundation, which promotes mental health and suicide prevention among teens and young adults.

“It helps students develop not just coping skills but regular habits and ways of living,” says Micky M. Sharma, director of the counseling center at Ohio State University and past president of the Association for University and College Counseling Center Directors. “They’ll still experience stress and anxiety, but it might ward off a major crisis.”

Vermont is also interested in the program’s impact on grade-point averages and retention rates, both of which are marginally higher among WE students.

Administrators are watching drinking statistics, too. Over the past five years, binge drinking — defined as five drinks for men or four for women within a two-hour period — has declined by approximately a third at UVM. The number of students requiring medical attention has declined by half.

Wellness Environment has helped, says Annie Stevens, the vice provost, but campuswide efforts have been broader. They include alcohol-free programming during weekends and high-risk events; increased use of brief, empathetic screening and intervention sessions; and placement of behavioral-health personnel in the primary-care office to help students move to treatment programs if needed.

Officials at dozens of other colleges have written to Stevens and Hudziak asking about the Wellness Environment program, and at least one, New York University, is trying a smaller-scale approach: a 60-student residential program called Wellness Intervention at NYU, or WIN, which offers activities and incentives, much like at Vermont.

The chief difference between the two programs, apart from their size, is that only some of the students in WIN take a course in risk and resiliency, says Jess P. Shatkin, a professor of psychiatry and pediatrics, who built the NYU program. Through a randomized control trial, he hopes to determine whether the class makes a difference in students’ well-being.

In June, Vermont will hold a four-day workshop for colleges interested in replicating WE on their campuses. Hudziak has visions of a consortium of colleges with broad wellness programs.

For now, though, the university may need to focus on improving the program’s image on its own campus. Alistair Murphy, the freshman, says “a lot of students don’t like us — they see us almost as a cult.

“There’s this image that we’re working out six hours a day and eating kale. And some people don’t like the fact that we got a new dorm.”

Stevens acknowledges that administrators are still “catching up” on the public-relations front. “Any program that builds this fast is bound to have commentary,” she says. “We need to communicate better why what we’re doing works.”

Still, Hudziak believes that UVM’s campus culture and its reputation are changing, for the better. Plenty of students still get high on the campus green, but twice as many now run the 5K instead, he says.

“It’s hard to call it Groovy U,” the professor says, “when a third of the freshmen are choosing an environment that’s not groovy.”