Mission Statement:

"We are a long-standing group of diverse individuals working on a common goal of healthier UNCW students now and in the future. Our efforts will include educating, providing resources, completing large scale events, and working in small groups."

Goals and Objectives

• Reduce the frequency and amount of student high-risk drinking to at least a 35% rate, and decrease the associated second-hand negative consequences.
  • Strengthen enforcement
  • Change Policy
• Change the knowledge base, perceptions, and environment of students pertaining to alcohol use and abuse
  • Increase knowledge
  • Change perceptions
  • Change environment - marketing, free options, availability
• Conduct ongoing assessments that will describe the attitudes and behaviors of students in regard high-risk drinking and other surveys to further the goals of the Coalition.
  • Collect and Analysis data

High Risk Drinking

Environmental Management

The essence of the environmental management approach to alcohol and other drug prevention is for college officials, working in conjunction with the local community, to change the campus and community environment that contributes to AOD problems. Such change can be brought about through an integrated combination of programs, policies, and public education campaigns. Stated simply, traditional approaches to prevention have tacitly accepted the world as it is and then tried to teach students as individuals how to resist its temptations. In contrast, with the environmental management approach, there is a coordinated effort to change the world-- that is, the campus and community environment-- in order to produce a large-scale impact on the entire campus population, including students, faculty, staff, and administrators.

The environmental management approach is intellectually grounded in the field of public health, which emphasizes the broader physical, social, cultural, and institutional forces that contribute to problems of human health.

The environmental management approach is also grounded in recent judicial case law. Recent court rulings have made clear that colleges are not expected to control student conduct, stating that it is both unrealistic and inappropriate to expect college administrators to control their students' private behavior. In effect, the courts have said that attendance at a college does not make a student any less an independent and free-acting adult. Such rulings have brought the era of in loco parentis to a close.(28)

On the other hand, the courts have stated that colleges must take reasonable protective measures to guard against foreseeable hazards and risks in the school environment. In essence, then, colleges must ensure that their activities, offerings, and programs meet minimum standards of care, and they must take steps to deal with dangerous situations on campus. In one sense, these rulings mean that colleges and universities have the same responsibilities as other property owners.(29)

W. DeJong; C. Vince-Whitman; T. Colthurst; M. Cretella; M. Gilbreath; M. Rosati; and K. Zweig, 1998 Environmental Management: A Comprehensive Strategy for Reducing Alcohol and Other Drug Use on College Campuses

Research and Links

The U.S. Department of Educations Higher Education Center for Alcohol and Other Drug

A Matter of Degree - RWJ