Online Alcohol Prevention Program Designed to Maintain Safe and Healthy Campus Culture

August 17, 2005

August 17, 2005, Greencastle, Ind. - As part of its continuing, proactive efforts to bring attention to the problem of alcohol abuse and related behaviors -- issues faced on every college campus in America -- DePauw has asked all incoming first-year students to complete an online alcohol prevention program before arriving on campus for the fall semester. The program, AlcoholEdu® for College, is part of a comprehensive and proactive approach DePauw is taking to ensure that students have the tools they need to make safe and healthy decisions about alcohol.

"High-risk drinking is a problem nationwide among college and university students," says Cara Setchell, assistant dean of students. "DePauw University is committed to getting ahead of the problem to make sure our students have a positive experience here -- both academically and socially -- and once they have graduated."

In addition to AlcoholEdu for College, DePauw continues to implement a comprehensive alcohol program for all students with specific programming efforts directed toward first-year students. In March 2003, the University launched the Coalition for a Responsible Community, an effort that involved all DePauw constituents -- students, faculty, alumni and administrators (read more here).  The group's work resulted in a community covenant for DePauw: a set of expectations for members of the University community: in essence, stating the expectations for those who choose to live in the DePauw community (read the covenant by clicking here).  Additionally, The Genesis Group -- a coalition of 46 national and international fraternities and sororities dedicated to finding solutions to the persistent problem of binge drinking among college students -- selected DePauw University as one of two test sites for its Program For Change (read more here).

In March 2005, the National Institute of Alcoholism and Alcohol Abuse (NIAAA) released new data suggesting that the problem of college drinking exceeds previous estimates, citing 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.

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. It includes three confidential surveys which will provide success measures for the institution after students have completed it. The program was developed by Boston-based Outside The Classroom. 

An independent, third-party evaluation of AlcoholEdu for College, undertaken by Andrew Wall, Ph.D., of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, revealed that students who completed AlcoholEdu for College experienced approximately 50% fewer negative health, social, and academic consequences than students who had not yet taken the course.

Visit DePauw's Office of Student Affairs online by clicking here. 

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