Fiscal Year 2006 Award Abstracts

The Secretary of Education identified a national need to address high-risk drinking and violent behavior among college students. This grant competition’s goal is to provide funds to individual institutions of higher education, consortia thereof, public and private organizations, and individuals to develop or enhance, implement, and evaluate campus- and/or community-based prevention and early intervention strategies. Grantees focus attention on and develop solutions to prevent and reduce high-risk drinking or violent behavior among college students.

This project proposes to create and implement a comprehensive, research-based model to address high-risk drinking among the college’s on-campus student population. The goals and objectives of the project include development of a comprehensive awareness campaign using specific social norms identified with high-risk drinking; development of an on-campus support system intertwining student, faculty, and staff working toward the common goal of preventing high-risk drinking; and development of a college community coalition committed to reducing high-risk drinking among the college’s students.

This project proposes to develop and pilot-test two approaches to high-risk drinking among first-year students, including expressive writing, in which participants write about their thoughts and feelings, and behavioral monitoring, in which students keep track of their weekly drinking patterns. By using a rigorous, randomized-control group design, the project staff will be able to make informed decisions regarding the efficacy of these interventions. The project also will assess students’ readiness to change, perceived stress, alcohol self-efficacy, and sense of belonging to determine how these variables mediate the relationship between these strategies and drinking behavior.

This project has three main goals: create a comprehensive campus violence prevention model, generate a coordinated series of programs and services to address relationship violence, and develop a model relationship violence protocol, environmental scanning tool for campus violence, and campus violence survey. Program components include, but are not limited to, a curriculum infusion program, a fellowship that addresses gender role socialization, a safe zone "identified helper" program, and services for students from violent families.

The project’s goal is to decrease high-risk drinking by educating students about the dangers of alcohol abuse and linking students who abuse alcohol with counseling efforts on campus. The project’s tasks include, but are not limited to, increasing nonuse of alcohol on campus, monitoring the sale of alcohol to underage youth, encouraging fraternities and sororities to adopt an alcohol-free policy, increasing reports of second-hand alcohol-related problems, and educating bars and restaurants frequented by students about the secondary effects of high-risk drinking.

The project’s goal is to decrease high-risk drinking among first-year students at the University of Wisconsin-Stout by 5 percent within two years by implementing evidence-based strategies. Activities to achieve this goal include implementation of Communities Mobilizing for Change on Alcohol, a model program identified by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, to decrease the commercial and social availability of alcohol to minors; implementation of a comprehensive media and community awareness campaign to enhance and complement programming effectiveness; facilitation of program collaboration among community partners; and evaluation.

The project’s mission is to address and positively change sexual abuse attitudes, rape-related attitudes, sexual assault knowledge, and behavioral intent, as well as to increase bystander intervention, reduce incidence of sexual assault, and increase utilization of victim advocacy services and reporting. The project will develop, implement, and sustain a comprehensive sexual violence prevention program targeted at men on campus who are affiliated with all male organizations, teams, and programs. Programs associated with this project will focus on a wide range of issues, including masculinity, femininity, gender relations, conformist behavior, and bystander apathy.

This project utilizes several evidence-based strategies outlined in the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism’s 3-in-1 Framework and Tiers of Effectiveness. The project’s goals are to reduce high-risk drinking among first year students by 5 percent and alcohol-related consequences by 10 percent. The project will strengthen linkages between campus and community partners; involve faculty and teaching assistants in prevention; expand social marketing with new venues and materials; actively engage parents in prevention efforts; increase the number of alcohol-free activities; and incorporate evidence-based strategies in the University Residences alcohol violation intervention program.

This project proposes to meet the unique and complex needs of its student-athlete high-risk drinkers through the establishment, implementation, and evaluation of a specially designed screening and brief intervention strategy. Bridging the theory and knowledge base across alcohol screening and brief intervention, sports medicine, sport psychology, and exercise and performance science, the project builds on the Brief Alcohol Screening and Intervention for College Students (BASICS) model by applying the intervention, infused with athlete-specific feedback linking alcohol use to athletic performance, in a manner that is relevant, responsive, and realistic to student-athletes’ needs. The project’s goals include a reduction in alcohol use and related negative consequences among student-athletes.

The project’s long-term goal is to reduce high–risk drinking through individual and environmental levels of alcohol education, intervention, and outreach, with a focus on reducing high–risk drinking among students who live on campus and in a defined area of Minneapolis adjacent to campus. The project’s components include the incorporation of brief motivational interviewing in several intervention efforts, including the use of a restorative justice program to deal with livability–related alcohol citations, as well as health service assessments and consultations and housing and residential life workshops.

This project seeks to reduce violent behavior at the shared campus of Syracuse University and State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry. To achieve this, the primary strategy will be to implement a peer education program based on the Mentors in Violence program, a gender-based violence prevention and education program that employs bystander and peer mentoring approaches. Project staff also will implement an intensive evaluation plan to demonstrate that the program can be successfully used to change violent behaviors and reduce incidents of gender violence at institutions of higher education.

The project’s four goals are to reduce the prevalence of binge drinking among first-year students, reduce the number of negative consequences related to alcohol use, decrease the prevalence of binge drinking on game day, and change the perception that alcohol facilitates sexual opportunities. This project relies on three guiding theoretical frameworks, namely social marketing, theory of reasoned action, and social norms. Message design will promote both the proximal and salient costs associated with high-risk drinking, and will be conveyed in newspapers, on the radio, and via other appropriate media channels, using input received from students.

This project joins three institutions of higher education (Minnesota State University, Moorhead; Concordia College; and Minnesota State Community and Technical College) and connects them with the Moorhead Police Department to employ a "3-in-1" approach that addresses the individual, campus, and surrounding community. The project includes several components, including campus social norms and other educational strategies, bystander training, and increased enforcement of the minimum drinking age law and campus policies. All three campuses are targeting two student populations shown to be at risk for high-risk drinking: first-year students (primarily living in the residence halls) and students who choose to live off campus.