A specialized committee has been formed to examine what the University Faculty Senate calls an excessive drinking culture at Penn State.

In past years, one proposed Faculty Senate solution to excessive drinking involved holding more 8 a.m. classes to deter students from staying out late during the week.

The new committee is a sub-committee to the Student Life Committee and was formed during a recent meeting. It consists of five to six faculty members and will examine the issue from the professors' perspective, said Dale Holen, chairman of the Student Life Committee.

"We can't tell faculty what to do," Holen said. "But we can make some recommendations on how the education system should be used to combat this problem."

Last year, a significant percentage of Penn State students indicated negative educational experiences resulting from drinking including hangovers, missing classes or doing something they later regretted, according to a Penn State Pulse Survey of about 1,300 students.

Every year, about 1,400 American college students die from drinking-related incidents such as alcohol poisoning and car accidents, according to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.

In the past few years, the Student Life Committee examined the drinking culture from many angles but reached no decisive action, Holen said.

"We've been talking about the drinking culture for several years," Holen said. "We went round and round on the issue."

Student drinking has remained on the Student Life Committee agenda this year, but this semester, they've committed most of their time to other issues such as the new student government, said Joanna Floros, chairwoman of the Faculty Senate.

The new committee hasn't held any meetings yet, but they will probably start working on a report for the Faculty Senate with a summary of statistics about student alcohol consumption and recommendations for faculty involvement in preventing excessive drinking, Holen said.

In the past, the university has run media campaigns about consuming in a safe manner and recognizing alcohol poisoning, said Linda Lasalle, coordinator of health education.

"There's a lot of data which shows students engage in high-risk alcohol consumption," she said. "We've done a lot of education campaigns, but this committee might choose not to do that."

Last year, the administration set aside $200,000 specifically for alcohol initiatives and sponsored speakers, freshmen orientation programs and counseling for students with alcohol problems.

The new sub-committee sounds worthwhile, said Jill Shockey, a university spokeswoman.

"The faculty keep student safety a main concern," she said. "It sounds like a worthwhile endeavor. I would expect them to be very deliberative in their considerations of excessive drinking and other related issues."