When students are intoxicated, they usually try to avoid any contact with police. But a program on campus run by University Police Services encourages interaction between drunk students and police.

The program uses student volunteers of legal drinking age who consume alcoholic beverages to get as close to a blood-alcohol level of .10 as they can in one hour. A person can be arrested in Pennsylvania for driving under the influence (DUI) with a blood-alcohol level of at least .10 -- the point of legal intoxication.

The volunteers meet in front of an audience as police officers administer field sobriety tests. The tests include a walking line test, an eye test and the breathalyzer.

Bob Archy, supervisor of University Police Services at the Penn State Altoona campus, said that when he was on University Park's staff, half of the campus arrests for driving under the influence of alcohol were students. Archy then started the program to show people what constitutes a DUI arrest.

Delmar Woodring, University police supervisor, said the program has been presented at Penn State Erie and Hazleton campuses, but is only done on a regular basis at the University Park and Altoona campuses.

Greg Gelles (senior-computer engineering), who is a student drinker for the program, said he had 15 shots of vodka in one hour during one of the tests. Gelles, who threw up in a trash can during the program, said his blood-alcohol level was higher than he expected it would be -- .186 and rising.

Scott Ulrich (junior-dairy science), a program participant who didn't consume as much as Gelles, said he was surprised after drinking six beers in 45 minutes and having a reading of .055.

"I thought it would be a little higher," Ulrich said. "I wouldn't have been afraid to go anywhere. I knew there was something different, but I wasn't disillusioned."

Dot Smith, president of the Centre County Chapter of Mothers Against Drunk Driving, said she thinks the program is appropriate for the college age group.

"If it's done the right way, it can be very effective," she said.

Dave Stormer, assistant vice president of university safety and environmental services, helped start the program and said its machines, breathalyzers and intoxilyzers came from the state surplus supply.

"They were outdated in terms of court purposes, but they were still accurate," Stormer said.

Don Reed, a University police officer who does the demonstrations along with other officers, said the purpose is to show that "a drunk driver isn't a falling-down drunk."

Similar drunken driving demonstrations are also presented by Rockview State Police. Philip Rickert, corporal patrol supervisor at Rockview, said, "I don't know an alternative to being intoxicated. We use our own troopers for drinkers and try to get them to a .10 or slightly above."

Christine Lauter, president of Students Against Driving Drunk, said she thinks the program gives the students a feel of what really happens at a DUI arrest.

Lauter (junior-animal bioscience) said, "Most people don't know how the tests are scored." She said the program works because the students see actual tests rather than hearing DUI statistics.