Students need to be diligent, they need to be aware, and the more aware they are, and the more educated they are, the better they do in terms of making healthy, good decisions.

-Deidre Dalsing, Director of University Counseling Services.

The University of Wisconsin-Platteville featured the Sexual Assault, Alcohol and Other Drug Abuse (AODA) seminar, hosted by Student Academic Success Seminar on Wednesday Oct. 1. These presentations are held throughout the fall semester, and they range on a wide variety of topics to benefit students.

The Sexual Assault and AODA seminar included facts, laws, interactive discussions and statistics that the University has collected over the past several years. This presentation was specific to UW-Platteville with the facts and statistics that were presented.

This presentation also included several ways to stay safe on campus. UW-Platteville created safety services for students to utilize such as Safe Walk, Blue Call Boxes, Counseling Services and more.

One statistic that most students are not aware of is that alcohol is the number one date rape drug, not the more commonly known “roofies” or other illicit drugs.

“[AODA] was very interesting. It was nice to know the statistics and the percentages of things on this campus,” freshman media studies Haley Fueling said.

Many facts like these that were included in the seminar are to make students more aware of the dangers of alcohol while enrolled in college.

Deidre Dalsing, director of University Counseling Services, conducted the Sexual Assault and AODA presentation.

“For freshman coming in, there is always an expectation of what college should be. I’m hoping that this allows them an opportunity to think about it from a more broad perspective, that it’s not just that drinking is typical and normal in college; therefore, there is going to be a problem with it or bad things don’t happen,” Dalsing said. “Students need to be diligent, they need to be aware, and the more aware they are, and the more educated they are, the better they do in terms of making healthy, good decisions.”

“I thought [AODA] was useful about alcohol and being safe with if you’re going to do it and stuff like that,” undecided major freshman Taylor Anderson said.

University Counseling Services is located on the second floor of Royce Hall. Their student services are included in the segregated fees; therefore their services are free to students. They also fuel the sexual assault prevention campaign seen around campus. Several of these posters can be seen in residence halls and other academic buildings.

The university encourages students to attend these seminars to help students succeed in college. They are brief one hour presentations for students to attend, especially incoming freshman. To find out when the next seminars will be held visit UW-Platteville’s homepage.