Boulder, Colo. ? The University of Colorado, long tabbed as a top party school, may ease the strict alcohol-related measures put in place last year.

A voluntary Web-based program called “e-CHUG” – for “Electronic Check-Up to Go” – will replace a three-hour online course that became mandatory for freshmen last fall.

The new program will cost the university $575 instead of the $48,000 it would have cost to re-use the online class, said Bob Maust, who heads CU’s alcohol-education efforts.

The voluntary program includes a 15-minute survey and gives instant feedback on how a student’s drinking habits compare with others. Because it’s confidential and doesn’t track names or student identification numbers, CU can’t make it mandatory, Maust told the Daily Camera newspaper.

A two-strikes policy, which can lead to suspension after two alcohol or drug violations, is still in place. But Maust said officials are considering no longer putting those violations on the records of underage students caught with alcohol unless more serious circumstances are involved.

The school is also considering withholding strikes from the records of students simply caught being in a dorm room where there was alcohol.

CU is testing a course on the “freshman-year experience” that could become mandatory for new students beginning in 2006. It would include discussions of alcohol, diversity, sexual assault, time management and other issues facing new students.

Lynn “Gordie” Bailey Jr., a freshman, was found dead in the Chi Psi fraternity house on Sept. 17 after a pledge ceremony that involved heavy drinking, authorities said.