130 Colleges, Universities, and Greek Organizations Mandate Online Alcohol Prevention; Trend Illustrates Renewed Effort to Help College Students Make Safe Decisions About Alcohol.BOSTON -- This fall, more than 150,000 college students will complete an online alcohol prevention program in an effort by campus and Greek organization administrators to ensure that students have the skills they need to make safe and healthy decisions about alcohol. According to a March 2005 report from the National Institute of Alcoholism and Alcohol Abuse (NIAAA), the problem of college drinking exceeds previous estimates. The report cites more than 1700 alcohol-related deaths and 2.8 million cases of driving under the influence in 2001. Previous estimates also suggest 500,000 injuries, 70,000 sexual assaults, and 159,000 first-year student dropouts due to alcohol and other drugs every year. Now more than ever, colleges, universities, and Greek organizations are taking positive, proactive steps to address alcohol before it becomes a problem. In fact, this fall 130 institutions and Greek organizations are taking the bold step of requiring an online alcohol prevention program called AlcoholEdu for College(R). By requiring all first-year students - or new members, in the case of Greek organizations - to complete AlcoholEdu for College, these institutions are taking advantage of Population-Level Prevention(R), a method of prevention that leverages students' social networks to produce significant improvement in alcohol-related perception and behaviors, and inspire social and cultural change. Institutions delivering the course to their entire student body are not only changing individual students' behavior but are also changing the culture of drinking on their campuses. AlcoholEdu for College is an online, non-opinionated prevention program used on more than 450 campuses around the country. The program, which takes about two-and-a-half hours to complete, integrates proven prevention techniques into the science-based curriculum. AlcoholEdu for College is customized based on each student's drinking behaviors, sex, and readiness to change, providing a highly personalized experience. It includes three confidential surveys which provide success metrics for the institution after students have completed the course. AlcoholEdu for College was developed by Boston-based Outside The Classroom, Inc. An independent, third-party evaluation of AlcoholEdu for College, undertaken by Andrew Wall, Ph.D., of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Early years: 1867-1880 The Morrill Act of 1862 granted each state in the United States a portion of land on which to establish a major public state university, one which could teach agriculture, mechanic arts, and military training, "without excluding other scientific , revealed that students who completed AlcoholEdu for College experienced approximately 50% fewer negative health, social, and academic consequences during the academic year than students who had not yet taken the course. "High-risk drinking on college campuses has been allowed to flourish for too long without any true prevention programming," said Brandon Busteed, Founder and CEO (1) (Chief Executive Officer) The highest individual in command of an organization. Typically the president of the company, the CEO reports to the Chairman of the Board. of Outside The Classroom. "We congratulate these colleges, universities, and Greek organizations for taking the first step in maximizing their students' health and safety." The institutions and Greek organizations providing the program to all incoming students and new members include a cross-section of today's U.S. institutions. They are public and private, large and small, and span the country, including University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley is a public research university located in Berkeley, California, United States. Commonly referred to as UC Berkeley, Berkeley and Cal ; Villanova University; Colorado State University Colorado State University, at Fort Collins; land-grant with state and federal support; chartered 1870, opened 1879 as an agricultural college, assumed present name in 1957. There is a veterinary teaching hospital, an agricultural campus, and a research campus. ; California State University, Chico References 1. ^ "California State University, Chico", Yahoo! Education, 2006. Retrieved on 2006-12-28. ; Miami University of Ohio; Bowling Green State University Bowling Green State University, at Bowling Green, Ohio; coeducational; chartered 1910 as a normal school, opened 1914. It became a college in 1929, a university in 1935. ; University of Connecticut The University of Connecticut is the State of Connecticut's land-grant university. It was founded in 1881 and serves more than 27,000 students on its six campuses, including more than 9,000 graduate students in multiple programs. UConn's main campus is in Storrs, Connecticut. ; and University of Southern California The U.S. News & World Report ranked USC 27th among all universities in the United States in its 2008 ranking of "America's Best Colleges", also designating it as one of the "most selective universities" for admitting 8,634 of the almost 34,000 who applied for freshman admission . For more information on additional institutions and Greek organizations mandating this online prevention program, please see http://www.outsidetheclassroom.com/about/our_customers.asp. About Outside The Classroom Outside The Classroom is the leading provider of online alcohol prevention programs and offers courses for college and high school students. The AlcoholEdu development team is led by Richard P. Keeling, MD, Vice President for Prevention Programs, and includes prevention professionals, assessment and evaluation experts, experienced educators, and leading scientists, including distinguished neuropsychologists and brain researchers Scott Swartzwelder, Ph.D., and Aaron White, Ph.D., of Duke University Medical Center. Outside The Classroom collaborates with many prominent organizations, including the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators The National Association of Student Personnel Administrators is a major student affairs organization in the United States of America. Founded in 1919 at the University of Wisconsin, NASPA has over 11,000 members at 1,400 campuses, and 29 countries. (NASPA) and Mothers Against Drunk Driving Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) is a nonprofit organization with more than 600 chapters nationwide. MADD seeks to find effective solutions to the problems of drunk driving and underage drinking, while also supporting those persons whose relatives and friends have been killed by drunk (MADD MADD Mothers Against Drunk Drivers Public health An organization that advocates stricter legislation against DUI and underage drinking, and provides support services for victims of DUI collisions. See DUI. ). |
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