Sourcebook | Action Planner | Task Force Planner & Guide | Highlights | Publications CD
Dealing with Alcohol Abuse on Campus
By David S. Anderson and Gail Gleason Milgram
From Promising Practices: Campus Alcohol Strategies SourcebookThe information-gathering process for the "Promising Practices: Campus Alcohol Strategies" project was thorough and broad-based, making every reasonable attempt to identify promising models at U.S. colleges and universities.
A letter asked the presidents of the 3,845 colleges and universities in the country to name their contact person for alcohol-abuse prevention. Over 1,200 responses named key individuals, who were sent applications inviting them to share potentially model program practices. In addition, each college's chief student-affairs officer was sent an application. Many other steps were also taken to encourage applications. Ultimately, our staff received 811 formal applications from 508 colleges.
Our reflections here are based on our experience in alcohol abuse prevention, the materials received, and phone interviews with those who submitted information. Together with our previous research and hundreds of conversations with experts, it seems possible to offer recommendations for future programming to states, consortia, individual institutions, groups, and individuals concerned with addressing alcohol abuse in college.
They cannot be acted on fully by most agents of action. Yet, movement forward in any domain heightens the probability, however incrementally, that will translate into increasing student behavioral health. There is no order of importance or priority, since every local situation may differ in immediate needs and historical progress.
- Integrate alcohol abuse prevention efforts into the fabric of the institution.
Alcohol-abuse prevention will be best served when it is an integral part of the institution. Since academics are the core of institutions of higher education, alcohol-abuse prevention efforts must be melded into the existing curriculum of each university and college. This is particularly important for campuses where many or all students are commuters. Integrating alcohol-abuse prevention into academic courses ensures that the messages reach their target populations.
Incorporation of alcohol-abuse prevention into the overall mission of the institution also suggests that financial grounding for these efforts should be institutionalized. Such programs should be incorporated into the regular, ongoing budget of the institution. This is important, as current alcohol abuse prevention initiatives typically operate with limited funds, resources, and personnel.
- Ensure that efforts are clearly defined and well grounded.
It is important that those charged with campus alcohol-abuse prevention initiatives clarify their assumptions and define the theories that underlie their prevention efforts. Individuals in prevention need to work with others on campus to decide what they believe is important for the students in their unique setting at a specific point in time. Needs assessment and clear articulation of goals are critical to an appropriate campus initiative. The design, implementation, and evaluation of the program are enhanced when outcomes are clearly defined.
- Create a comprehensive, long-term perspective.
Although the incentive to address specific alcohol-abuse consequences promptly is strong, we believe the ultimate solution to campus alcohol abuse problems lies in a long-term comprehensive approach. Certainly, short-term initiatives may be immediately helpful; however, they typically do not address the underlying issues and thus, the problems will more than likely reoccur.
The typical campus approach focuses on discrete components and is not comprehensive. As campus leadership considers a comprehensive program, it is important to think "long-term" and understand that the nature of the comprehensive effort will unfold over time as more individuals and organizations become involved. Changing the culture on campus and modifying campus norms and behaviors take time. To expect change quickly is simply not realistic; patience and sustained effort will generate results ultimately.
- Design campus initiatives to be multi-targeted and broad-based.
Campuses typically have a diverse student population; therefore, it is important to target approaches specifically to various groups. For example, messages for athletes may clearly diverge from messages for fraternity and sorority members; and some approaches for first-year students may be much different from those used with graduating seniors. There are numerous potential target groups based on a variety of issues, e.g., gender, sexual orientation, age, year in college, fraternity/sorority affiliation, place of residence, family background, and patterns of alcohol use.
- Allocate appropriate resources and staff commensurate with the task.
A comprehensive, long-term approach to solving campus alcohol-abuse problems requires appropriate staffing and resources and adequate training for these employees. We often found a half-time professional handling the alcohol-abuse prevention activities for a campus of 20,000 students. Similarly, we encountered professionals and offices who did not have the time to share the work they were doing because of all their other responsibilities. In some cases, we encountered offices that closed down after submitting their responses.
Many of the initiatives we looked at received substantial funding from the U.S. Department of Education's Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE) grant program, including staff, materials, and other resources. Extending the implications of cost-benefit and cost-offset studies of prevention to campuses, it is likely that investments will be recovered in dollars as well as student health. But that investment should be made on a continuous basis, with or without external help.
- Build program connections on and off the campus.
No one individual or single office should be charged with "doing it all alone." To fully integrate substance-abuse initiatives into the institutional fabric, it is vital that those charged with implementing alcohol-abuse prevention efforts build connections with individuals and organizations on the campus.
Infusion of alcohol-abuse prevention concepts into the classroom setting, collaboration with the institutional research office, linkage with student organizations, support of resident hall personnel, and other outreach illustrate the importance of having a variety of individuals and offices share responsibility.
However, this type of local ownership requires consistency and a long-term perspective. Similarly, it is very helpful to build connections off campus with local services, enforcement personnel, or those who serve or provide alcohol. Progressive campuses view this issue as a shared concern of both the internal and external community.
- Collaborate with other professionals.
Campus personnel are best served when they collaborate with one another by sharing their insights, frustrations, concerns, and successes. This may be accomplished through a local consortium, a statewide initiative, or a national forum. The collaboration may be at a fixed time, as at a conference, or over time through electronic or print communication.
Collaboration and dissemination help professionals realize that they are not alone; since others are addressing similar issues, each benefits from shared insight and expertise. In this way, campus personnel will be more sustained by the support of others, rather than experience a sense of isolation. Collaboration is not limited to other professionals with an alcohol-abuse prevention specialty. It is often helpful to extend collaboration to professionals in various academic disciplines as well as with community, regional, and state leaders.
- Conduct and use ongoing evaluation.
The importance of evaluation could fill an entire subset of recommendations. If campus approaches are to be thoughtful, they must be needs-based and vary according to different groups and audiences on the campus. Thus, a needs assessment process should be a primary foundation of the campus efforts.
It is important that the evaluation design by part of early discussions on campus strategies so monitoring can occur. Ongoing feedback and review are helpful to campus personnel to determine whether their approaches are accomplishing what was intended. It is particularly important to maintain this type of monitoring so that the expenditure of limited resources is properly directed.
It is also important not to rely on single evaluation approaches. Although it does take a significant amount of effort, campus evaluation should be theory-driven and build upon derived hypotheses and desired outcomes for the campus. Global protocols and measures, while helpful from the perspective of providing comparison with other institutions from specific regions of the country, may not fully address the desired outcomes for a particular campus at a specific point in time.
In addition, evaluation should not be only at the global level for the campus (such as an annual survey), but should also be able to measure individual initiatives, such as an assessment of the effectiveness of peer educator classroom interventions, a follow-up on the helpfulness of strategies used with students involved with judicial sanctioning, and reactions to media approaches.
Ongoing quantitative and qualitative evaluation approaches with a longitudinal perspective will be very helpful to the alcohol abuse prevention effort. Also, the shared results would enhance the sparse professional literature in the field.
- Clearly define the message and market the initiative.
Campus programs are beginning to emphasize strategies that address the overall environment on campus, with emphasis on the clear communication of specific messages. Not only are desired student behaviors specified, but misperceptions are also addressed. A clear focus helps to shape the message on the campus regarding alcohol abuse, serving as a prime example of how an initiative can be built upon strong theoretical grounding.
Hand-in-hand with message clarity is the need to market both the project elements and their messages in sophisticated ways. Students are bombarded daily with a multitude of media messages on many issues, making it all the more critical that alcohol abuse prevention strategies compete powerfully for attention, understanding, and adoption.
- Solicit support from the top and bottom of the campus hierarchy.
Often we hear the call that support from the top (i.e., the president, chancellor, provost, or even the governing board) is needed for the alcohol-abuse prevention program to be integrated and supported on a campus. Such support is extremely helpful, especially for comprehensive programs. However, lack of support from the top does not mean that nothing can be accomplished. Many colleges have developed excellent programs which will serve as a foundation from which to grow.
In addition, support from the "bottom" is critical. The "grassroots" initiative is an integral part of the fabric of the institution. Working together, individuals on and off the campus, having shared interests and desires, can accomplish significant impact and change.
Further, just as it is essential to have appropriate needs-based and targeted approaches, it is important for the long-term sustenance of the alcohol-abuse prevention effort that the voice of those who benefit from that effort - students, peer educators, faculty members, staff members, parents, alumni, and others - is sought and heeded.
Although these recommendations may initially appear overwhelming and unmanageable, it is our belief that their implementation will yield better results for the campus community. We believe that careful and thoughtful integration and incorporation of these recommendations will help campus professionals charged with alcohol-abuse prevention, as well as others on the campus, to "work smarter, not harder." Though the task ahead is significant, we have identified outstanding programs, and campus professionals can network with those who developed these individual programs to create programs for their campuses.
The goal of making our campuses healthier and safer living and learning environments is attainable; sharing our strategies and resources will enable us to more quickly maximize our students' potential. We are confident that vision, patience, and perseverance will help us to minimize alcohol abuse on campuses.
David S. Anderson is Associate Professor, Center for the Advancement of Public Health (CAPH), George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia. Gail Gleason Milgram is Professor and Director of Education and Training, Center of Alcohol Studies, Rutgers University, Piscataway, New Jersey. They are co-directors of the "Promising Practices" project described here. Condensed from Promising Practices: Campus Alcohol Strategies Sourcebook, Chapter 4 ("Conclusions and Recommendations")
If you would like to order, at no cost, any of the materials featured on this website, please e-mail your request including your name and mailing address. For additional information about Promising Practices: Campus Alcohol Strategies, please call 703-993-3697 or e-mail us.