Fraternal Information and Programming Group -- FIPG -- Endorses AlcoholEdu; Recommends All Member Organizations Adopt Online Prevention Program.

Education Editors

BOSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--July 31, 2002

The Fraternal Information and Programming Group (FIPG), the leading national organization addressing risk-management education and policies for fraternal organizations, today announced its endorsement and recommendation of Outside The Classroom's AlcoholEdu(TM) online prevention course to all members.

This action represents the first time FIPG has formally endorsed any alcohol prevention program.

AlcoholEdu is the flagship product of Outside The Classroom, Inc., the leading provider of online health education for colleges and universities. Used by hundreds of institutions including more than half of the nation's top schools as ranked by US News and World Report, AlcoholEdu empowers students with the critical knowledge they need to make smart decisions about how to drink responsibly -- or not at all -- through an innovative online curriculum developed by leading researchers and educators. AlcoholEdu has been proven to show positive changes in knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors among individual students and student populations.

"We feel that high-risk alcohol consumption is one of the biggest threats facing students today -- and it is also one of the most remediable," said Melanie Doyle, President of FIPG. "Outside The Classroom is at the forefront of new prevention methodologies that we see as the future of alcohol education, especially when delivered to entire groups of students. We would like to see that every fraternity member has the knowledge they need to make safe decisions about alcohol."

According to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) in their recent study "A Call to Action: Changing the Culture of Drinking at US Colleges," the consequences of high-risk student alcohol consumption are truly staggering. Annually there are:

-- 1,400 alcohol-related deaths

-- 500,000 alcohol-related injuries

-- 70,000 alcohol-related sexual assaults

-- 2.1 million incidences of drunk driving

-- 159,000 first-year student drop-outs due to alcohol and drugs

Further, high-risk alcohol consumption has been linked to a host of other serious problems from poor academic performance to property damage in the communities around college campuses.

"Outside The Classroom is on a mission -- to improve and save lives," said Brandon Busteed, the company's Founder and CEO. "Students are given years of preparation for the academic challenges they face in college," Busteed continued, "but most students haven't been given any real instruction to help them understand alcohol, the effects it has on the body, and the role it plays in college culture. AlcoholEdu has made it possible to do something that was never practical before -- educating entire fraternal organizations on hundreds of college campuses. We're thrilled to be working with FIPG."

By offering a powerful "educational intervention," AlcoholEdu engages not only the individual student during the three-hour online course, but also works to create a critical mass of informed, knowledgeable students, enabling changes in the campus culture that create a sense of individual responsibility and concern for others.

Outside The Classroom also serves schools as a critical resource for collecting data about student health issues using a dynamic web-based survey tool. TheHealthSurvey(TM) is the first and only online survey to accurately measure students' health-related thoughts, attitudes, and behaviors on a national or campus-specific basis. AlcoholEdu and TheHealthSurvey form the cornerstone upon which schools and fraternal organizations can build a comprehensive prevention strategy.

About Outside The Classroom, Inc.

Outside The Classroom (www.outsidetheclassroom.com), a Boston-based health education company, was founded to address critical behavioral health issues. The company's flagship product, AlcoholEdu, is a non-opinionated, online course about alcohol and its effects on the body. Universities nationwide are gaining insight about key campus health trends and environmental policy issues by using AlcoholEdu in conjunction with TheHealthSurvey, a comprehensive, online assessment tool. In addition to the college market, Outside The Classroom provides world-class online health education for individuals and institutions including high schools, corporations, and the armed forces.

Outside The Classroom is a partner to many prominent organizations including Mothers Against Drunk Driving, the Higher Education Center for Alcohol and Drugs, the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators (NASPA), and the American College Personnel Association (ACPA).

About FIPG

FIPG, Inc. is a national organization that helps member organizations implement sound risk-management policies. Composed of executives of 47 member organizations that must be national women or men's fraternities, FIPG's mission is "To promote sound risk management policies and practices; to be the leading resource of risk management education, programming and information to the broad based constituency involved in all aspects of Greek life." The goal if FIPG is to be the one-stop resource for risk management education, from member organizations to college and university professionals.