As Kansas University officials and other community members plan their next move in the ongoing fight against alcohol abuse, KU will sift through a voluminous amount of new data on the subject.

Marlesa Roney, KU’s vice provost for student success, said that once school resumes in January, KU’s committee to address alcohol abuse will have received data from a student panel, its new AlcoholEDU online course and other sources, as well.

Emily Williams, a KU graduate student who led a student panel that investigated the alcohol issue this fall, conducted a survey as part of the panel’s work.

The survey was sent to all students by e-mail, but Williams warned that it represented an unscientific method of collecting data, as only the most interested on the issue took time to fill out the survey.

Also, she said, because the survey did not ask for the names of students, it was possible that students took the survey more than once.

Still, the survey results showed that students seemed to balk at more heavy-handed efforts from KU administrators, choosing to focus more on educational efforts as a solution to abusive drinking.

Jason Hering, a senior from Hutchinson, agreed with that notion, and said it was difficult to balance personal freedoms with concerns of alcohol abuse. From his observations, he said alcohol seems to be ingrained in the nation’s culture.

“As far as I can tell, it’s an insolvable problem,” he said.

At least according to the survey conducted by Williams’ group, many KU students haven’t changed their drinking behaviors following the implementation of new KU policies.

For example, in the wake of two student deaths during the spring semester in which alcohol was a contributing factor, KU announced a new policy by which it would notify parents of an underage student after one drug violation or two alcohol violations in university housing. KU wrote 25 letters to parents for alcohol violations and 30 for drug-related incidents this semester.

Among the 1,819 students who replied to a survey question about the policy, only 42 said the policy had changed their drinking behavior. Roney cautioned that many of those who took the survey no longer live in university housing, and that’s who is affected by the policy.

“It’s very, very early to make any decisions at all” on the effectiveness of any policies, she said, noting the policies have only been in effect for one full semester.

Many students suggested things the university community has no control over — like lowering the drinking age to 18, Williams said.

“One of the things we were really wary of was adding more burden to the students,” Williams said. She said some students suggested working more with bar owners to crack down on underage drinking — something Roney said may be handled by a community group.

Roney said that while some of the responses were silly, most took the survey seriously and provided good input.

The next steps KU takes will be driven from that data, Roney said.

The KU community will continue to work with the Lawrence community to work for new solutions.

“There are no easy answers,” she said.

Roney said she believes it’s a problem the community needs to address, citing statistics on fatality accidents she heard from recent community meetings on the topic.

“Every traffic fatality in recent memory in Lawrence has had alcohol involved,” she said. “Every single one.”