The Nevada Sagebrush

Students gather in the Cantina del Lobo in the Joe Crowley Student Union for a karaoke night put on by the Late Night Coalition. File photo.

The Late Night Coalition, a group of campus entities at the University of Nevada, Reno dedicated to creating more late-night programming, met with both success and failure this semester.

The group is a result of a $91,000 grant from the federal government to enforce underage drinking laws. Although the majority of the money was allocated to enforcement and intervention, $30,000 per year was given to the coalition to offer students activities as alternatives to drinking on weekends.

Members of the group include representatives from the Office of Student Conduct, Lombardi Recreation Center, the Joe Crowley Student Union and the residence halls.

Leah Butterworth, the university coordinator for alcohol-prevention grant programs, allocates money to the various members of the group. This money sponsored events like casino nights for the residence halls, a skiing film by Warren Miller and yoga classes at the Starbucks in the Joe.

Some events, like the Miller film, saw attendance of more than 200 people. Others, like the yoga classes at Starbucks and karaoke night in the Cantina del Lobo, did not.

Jesi Schienle, a 21-year-old nursing major who works at Starbucks, said that the shop’s extended hours have only brought in about seven people every hour and yoga classes have seen as few as two people show up.

“The activities that we’ve put on, I don’t feel they’ve brought in that many people,” she said.

Butterworth attributed the lack of success in certain events to a lack of preparation on behalf of the coalition and said they will strive to engage students better next semester by planning earlier for events and increasing marketing for programs.

The group has put on 37 late-night events this semester and has planned six more before summer. Overall, Butterworth feels the coalition has been successful.

“I think we’re on a good road,” she said. “We’ve only been going for a couple months.”

Carol Millie of the Office of Student Conduct believes that the coalition could have done better.

“On the late-night activities, give us a C, maybe a C-plus,” she said.

Money from the grant for late-night activities will most likely run out in the 2012 spring semester, according to Sally Morgan, the vice president of the Office of Student Conduct. Butterworth hopes at that point the various groups within the coalition will already be in the habit of sponsoring late-night events.

Since receiving the grant to enforce underage drinking laws in 2008, the number of sophomores, juniors and seniors with alcohol violations has decreased sharply and the number of freshmen with violations has increased.

Millie says that these numbers have already dropped in 2010 and predicts that they will continue to do so.

Ben Miller can be reached at bmiller@nevadasagebrush.com.

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